If your book is set in the plantation days of the slave-owning South and you write a little romance between two slave owners without acknowledging the system they live, that's a political gesture.

As a society, you were unwilling to reflect upon the shared pain that united you with those who attacked you. You retreated into myths of your own difference, assumptions of your own superiority. And you acted out these beliefs on the stage of the world, so that the entire planet was rocked by the repercussions of your tantrums, not least my family, now facing war thousands of miles away.

NYC doesn't have a big sign saying "You must love diversity and the rights of all people." And that's not what makes you love diversity in NYC or anywhere. What makes you love diversity is because you live in it and you experience it.

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

We should be very skeptical of people who want to place limits on how we express ourselves.

The monolithic view that many Americans have of Pakistani culture is as inaccurate as the monolithic view that many Pakistanis have of American culture.

When people talk about the death of the novel, they are speaking of the need for the birth of something different.