It doesn't matter whether characters are real people or not; if they're not vivid on the page, then the reader doesn't care about them that much, and, if the reader doesn't care about them that much, then they don't care what happens to them.

Freedom is not a tea party, India. Freedom is a war.

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

What I've always tried to find in my books are points at which the private lives of the characters, and also my own, intersect with the public life of the culture.

What's the use of stories that aren't even true?

Don't you know girls have to fool people every day of their lives if they want to get anywhere?

Children are the vessels into which adults pour their poison.