Too many people had spent too long demonizing or totemizing me to listen seriously to what I had to say.

To be born again,' sang Gibreal Farishta tumbling from the heaveans, 'first you have to die. Ho ji! Ho ji! To land upon the bosomy earth, first one needs to fly Tat-taa! Takatun! How to ever smile again, if first you won't cry? How to win the darling's love mister, without a sigh?

A people that has remained convinced of its greatness and invulnerability, that has chosen to believe such a myth in the face of all the evidence, is a people in the grip of a kind of sleep, or madness.

The question I'm always asking myself is: are we masters or victims? Do we make history, or does history make us? Do we shape the world, or are we just shaped by it? The question of do we have agency in our lives or whether we are just passive victims of events is, I think, a great question, and one that I have always tried to ask.

The publishing of a book is a worldwide event. The attempt to suppress a book is a worldwide event.

A sigh isn't just a sigh. We inhale the world and breathe out meaning. While we can. While we can.

If you're going to write a memoir, try to be as honest and open as you can.