Transience is what is normal. The problem is that we are busily trying to create political structures and cultural expressions that deny that and to deny that is to deny the basic idea of what is human.

In Italian, the word for novel is romanzo, "the romance." The English is "novel" - something new. Both of those elements, experimentation and love, are fundamental to the form.

I think walking is very useful, like sleeping and dreaming, as something that's important to my ability to write.

Islam is not a race, yet Islamophobia partakes of racist characteristics.

The world seems concerned with Pakistan primarily as an actor in global attempts to combat terrorism.

Time is our most precious currency. So it's significant that we are being encouraged, wherever possible, to think of our attention not as expenditure but as consumption. This blurring of labor and entertainment forms the basis, for example, of the financial alchemy that conjures deca-billion-dollar valuations for social-networking companies.

Literature helps us transcend ourselves.