Vulnerability of artists is definitely what makes organizations like PEN necessary because, as I tried to argue, the actual work that writers and artists do has an ornery way of surviving. Particularly in this age of the internet, it is very easy for forbidden work to be found online somewhere if you know where to look. Artists themselves, however, are in increasing danger, and not just artists. The great concern is that year after year, rising numbers of journalists are being killed in pursuit of their work.

All art began as sacred art, you know? I mean, all painting began as religious painting. All writing began as religious writing.

With death comes honesty.

A man is sane only to the extent that he subscribes to a previously-agreed construction of reality.

You don't fight radical conservatism with not-quite-so radical conservatism.

I hate admitting that my enemies have a point.

The act of migration puts into crisis everything about the migrating individual or group, everything about identity and selfhood and culture and belief. So if this is a novel about migration it must be that act of putting in question. It must perform the crisis it describes.