I remember when I was young, many cities in the Muslim world were cosmopolitan cities with a lot of culture.

The only privilege literature deserves - and this privilege it requires in order to exist - is the privilege of being in the arena of discourse, the place where the struggle of our languages can be acted out.

I don't think it is always necessary to take up the anti-colonial -- or is it post-colonial? -- cudgels against English. What seems to me to be happening is that those people who were once colonized by the language are now rapidly remaking it, domesticating it, becoming more and more relaxed about the way they use it -- assisted by the English language's enormous flexibility and size, they are carving out large territories for themselves within its frontiers.

I'm a big-city boy. What I like is big cities. It's not just what I like. It's what I write about.

There's a lot of conflict and darkness inside everybody's family. We all pretend to outsiders that it's not so but behind locked doors there are usually high emotions running.

The only way to find out why someone decides to engage in armed combat is to look at their individual personality.

Be sure that you go to the author to get at his meaning, not to find yours.