I think the idea of migration through time is very important because every human being does that and it unites us with people who migrate through geography.

When the machine of a human being is turned on, it seems to produce a protagonist, just as a television produces an image.

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

Being a writer is not the point. Writing is.

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.

My mother has been to Mecca to perform her hajj; my dad hasn't. I come from a very liberal family, so even the people who are outwardly religious tend to subscribe to gender equality, the importance of open-mindedness, all that stuff. My family is generally nonprescriptive.

Growing up in Pakistan in the 1980s, I lived in the shadow of a tyrannical state.