I didn't become a writer to write about me.

In Iran, fundamentalism was fuelled to an extent by the regime of the Shah being supported by the West.

Between shame and shamelessness lies the axis upon which we turn; meteorological conditions at both these poles are of the most extreme, ferocious type. Shamelessness, shame: the roots of violence.

We are the storytelling animal.

One of the strange things about violent and authoritarian regimes is they don't like the glare of negative publicity.

I make no complaint. I am a writer. I do not accept my condition; I will strive to change it; but I inhabit it, I am trying to learn from it.

If I had simply wanted to trade on an insult to Islam, I could have done it in a sentence rather than writing a 250,000-word novel, a work of fiction.