When you write, you write out of your best self. Everything else drops away.

In the waking dreams our societies permit, in our myths, our arts, our songs, we celebrate the nonbelongers, the different ones, the outlaws, the freaks.

To understand just one life you have to swallow the world ... do you wonder, then, that I was a heavy child?

Nobody ever recognizes themselves unless they are not the character. There are many people who have claimed to be in my books, but unfortunately they were usually people that I didn't know.

There is a widespread difficulty in the Muslim world, which has to do with how the people are taught about examining their own history. A whole range of stuff has been placed off limits.

The novel does not seek to establish a privileged language but it insists upon the freedom to portray and analyze the struggle between the different contestants for such privileges.

I am clearly vulnerable to these more passionate and volatile unstable relationships. I am trying to not be so vulnerable.