In the experience of art, time seems not to exist. When I'm writing and think, "I've been working for two hours," I've actually been working for seven.

All names mean something.

Ignorantly is how we all fall in love; for it is a kind of fall. Closing our eyes, we leap from that cliff in hope of a soft landing. Nor is it always soft; but still, without that leap nobody comes to life.

They lived in a great city, a metropolis of many narratives that converged briefly and then separated for ever, discovering their different dooms in that crowd of stories through which all of us, following our own destinies, had to push and shove to find our way through, or out.

The only thing worse than a bad review from the Ayatollah Khomeini would be a good review from the Ayatollah Khomeini.

Cruelty is not a literary value.

And at the end of the day, there was an attempt to suppress a book. The book wasn't suppressed. It's freely available in whatever it is, close to 50 languages. There was an attempt to suppress the writer. And I'm happy to say the writer wasn't suppressed.