I have tried my best to keep my country alive by writing about it.

To the Somali, the Amerikaan is weird, to the American GI, the Somali is an ingrate and a skinny.

Good writing is like a bomb: it explodes in the face of the reader.

That in a civil war there is continuous fighting, based on grievences that are forever changing.

Death in Somalia seldom bothers to announce its arrival. In fact, death calls with the arrogance of a guest confident on receiving a warm welcome at any time, no question asked.

My old father used to have a saying: If you make a bad bargain, hug it all the tighter.

Salvation includes an ongoing transformation in your life.

I know what I did and how I accomplished it. I am proud of it and know that it was done with integrity.

Never was an age more sentimental, more devoid of real feeling, more exaggerated in false feeling, than our own.

A person wearing tinted glasses can avoid the conclusion that the entire world is tinted only by being conscious of the glasses themselves.

The soul is restored through union with God.

When we surrender to God, we let go of our attachment to how things happen on the outside, and we become more concerned with what happens on the inside.

But before we face experience, that miserable enemy, let us have some more innocence, just for a while.

Writing is not, alas, like riding a bicycle: it does not get easier with practice.

I don't really believe that people read just the stuff they agree with.