Even in so-called realist or conventional writing there can be defamiliarization.

The act of language or the act of denying language carries its own heaviness.

Giving the reader the space to move around and be active, and encourage their active response is important to me. That will connect the reader more to the text.

There's relief in white space for the reader.

Synesthesia has interested me for a long time, both as a literary device and as a puncturing of the membranes that organize how the world comes into someone's head.

I have what I came to find in my research is a mild form of synesthesia, though I never would have labeled it as such. It's how I think about numbers and letters. They all have inherent genders.

For me, the genders are an essential element of numbers and letters, not something that could be removed from them.

If a synesthetic person says the letter a is green, it can't ever be anything but green.

I'm always interested in encountering people who are synesthetic and seeing how they experience things.

I find myself writing protagonists who do feel pretty cut off from others but who want to make connections and aren't very good at it.

I don't know whose sensibility I'm responding to. Until someone starts pushing against what they've inherited and starts making their own decisions about language, it's difficult.

No matter how hard you try, you can’t please everyone”.

Republics end through luxury; monarchies through poverty.

When you come into a movie theatre, there are no windows, you don't hear the sound outside and you're ready for fantasy.

The best lies are based on the truth, at least in part

No one can be perfectly happy till all are happy.

I never imagine myself as anything. I've never had a goal or any future vision at all. I just do what's in front of me.

Yes, disappointment over perceived unfairness, injustice, promises not kept, tends to go hand in hand with increasing prosperity. Expectations are dashed. What can I say!

ʺThe contractʹs null and void, by the way.ʺ

In sha Allah, God willing, must be the expression of humility of the active actors and it must never be the justification of the passive observers