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.

Sex, like art, can unsettle a soul, can grind a heart in a mortar. Sex, like literature, can sneak the other within one's wall, even if only for a moment, a moment before one immures oneself again.

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.

When I published my first work, I thought I would never be able to go back to Lebanon. I thought they'd arrest me at the airport. I thought I would change literature as we know it. I thought I'd have men lining up at my door wanting to be my boyfriend. But later I discovered that no one read the book. Or no one cared. Right now, I have only one book translated into Arabic. Someday, maybe if the Syrian regime falls, there will be others, but probably another regime will come into power and it will employ just as much censorship.

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

I believe one has to escape oneself to discover oneself.

I wonder if being sane means disregarding the chaos that is life, pretending only an infinitesimal segment of it is reality.