For someone like me and my generation, you had to speak French to be sophisticated, you had to be lighter-skinned.

When I'm writing I don't feel any pressure. It's after I'm done that I start freaking out. But really, when I'm in Lebanon, I don't write much because I'm surrounded by family. I feel immersed, or enmeshed, in too many currents. I love that, but it's not conducive to writing. In San Francisco, nothing interferes with me but my cats.

I'm an atheist, a devout atheist, but I find religion fascinating. Primarily because of cultural references, as in: This is what we grew up with. Both on a personal level and a collective level.

...What happens is of little significance compared with the stories we tell ourselves about what happens. Events matter little, only stories of events affect us.

By remaining constrained in one's environment or country or family, one has little chance of being other than the original prescription. By leaving, one gains a perspective, a distance of both space and time, which is essential for writing about family or home, in any case.

You look at the Koran or the Bible, they all tell the same stories. You see them as the stories of the Middle East. The stories reflect who these people were in the Middle East, and this is where Western culture came from. All our literature is basically influenced by these great myths. So I'm fascinated by it. You could almost say I'm obsessed with it. But if you're asking about the effect of religion on my life - almost everything I do is opposed to the practice of religion.

What is the purpose of a city if not to grant the greatest of gifts, anonymity?