Farmers and people who make a living from the land are finding it impossible to survive. So the first step is to get out of that place. Come to the city where there are opportunities.

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 some contexts in Pakistan maybe a beard is negative. It depends. And in some contexts in America maybe a beard is positive. I think there's certainly lots of hipster communities where having a beard makes me look a little bit less like a, you know, middle-aged fuddy-duddy. And there's some places in Pakistan where having a beard, you know, certain corporate contexts, certain social contexts, where it's not an advantage to have a beard.

For a combination of reasons, and despite evident fondness for American products and individuals, my impression is that most Pakistanis have extremely negative views of the US as a geopolitical player.

Many boys, probably most boys, have a first love before they fall in love with a woman. It begins the moment two boys realize they'd die for one another, that each cares more for the other than he does for himself, and it lasts usually until a second love comes on the scene, because most hearts aren't big enough to love more than one person like that.

It seems an obvious thing to say, but you should not imagine that we Pakistanis are all potential terrorists, just as we should not imagine that you Americans are all undercover assassins.

If an American teenager were to come to Lahore, they'd have wildly different experiences depending on whom they met. They could party and get drunk and smoke hashish with some, while others would say, "Let's get some religious instruction."