What grows best in the heat: fantasy; unreason; lust.

Religion, a mediaeval form of unreason, when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms. This religious totalitarianism has caused a deadly mutation in the heart of Islam and we see the tragic consequences in Paris today. I stand with Charlie Hebdo, as we all must, to defend the art of satire, which has always been a force for liberty and against tyranny, dishonesty and stupidity. 'Respect for religion' has become a code phrase meaning 'fear of religion.' Religions, like all other ideas, deserve criticism, satire, and, yes, our fearless disrespect.

Without water we are nothing", the traveler thought. "Even an emperor, denied water, would swiftly turn to dust. Water is the real monarch and we are all its slaves.

Sometimes you find your voice by trying to write like people, and sometimes you find it by trying to write unlike people.

When you have children, your perspective on the parent-child relationship alters.

Laila Lalami has fashioned an absorbing story of one of the first encounters between Spanish conquistadores and Native Americans, a frightening, brutal, and much-falsified history that here, in her brilliantly imagined fiction, is rewritten to give us something that feels very like the truth.

Captain Ahab drowned, he reminded himself; it was the trimmer, Ishmael, who survived.