Novels function and the power of novels function because of their stories.

It is the effect of scarcity; one’s rules of propriety make one thirst for the improper.

For me, language is about the impossibility of communicating what we precisely wish to communicate and this gorgeous attempt that we make to do that anyway. I love that we will never say exactly what we mean, but we will forever keep trying.

In a subway car, my skin would typically fall in the middle of the color spectrum. On street corners, tourists would ask me for directions. I was, in four and a half years, never an American; I was immediately a New Yorker.

Childbirth changed my perception of my wife. She was now the bloodied special forces soldier who had fought and risked everything for our family.

Pakistan hasn't been cast in the role of... interesting cultural place or, you know, land of great comedians.

A reader should encounter themselves in a novel, I think.