I have reported enough about Islam and terrorism to recognize that a lot of what is at stake is not strictly religion, even though it's also about power and control. In the case of Karachi, like so many other growing cities, it's also about land, mafias, gang activity.

[Democrats] have lost the capacity to speak to the vast middle of America, an America that is, in large part, white, very religious and not highly educated.

I prefer a dirty victory to a noble defeat.

I'm just imagining some of [Mark Lilla] fellow liberals being rather angry at you saying such a thing [that Democrats and liberals, more generally, lost a lot of political capital ].

I see parallels between Karachi and the cities that I was familiar with: a very different place, but in terms of its human stories not really very different at all. That was what excited me about the place - that it was so complex, as difficult to me as an outsider and yet so human in a way that was ultimately very familiar.

When I choose the picture of the cover of the book 'Instant City: Life and Death in Karachi', I thought, gosh, many people in Karachi may not like this image; I'm representing the city as a burning bus. But to the contrary, they loved it, because that is people's understanding of their own city, of going on with life no matter what.

As we have seen after every other [Donald] Trump controversy, this one only increased their enthusiasm for him. His supporters thought the idea of a temporary halt in Muslims coming to the U.S. was a common sense proposal in a time of great fear about terrorism.