In Italian, the word for novel is romanzo, "the romance." The English is "novel" - something new. Both of those elements, experimentation and love, are fundamental to the form.

Childbirth changed my perception of my wife. She was now the bloodied special forces soldier who had fought and risked everything for our family.

Islam is not a race, yet Islamophobia partakes of racist characteristics.

Empathy is about finding echoes of another person in yourself.

It seems an obvious thing to say, but you should not imagine that we Pakistanis are all potential terrorists, just as we should not imagine that you Americans are all undercover assassins.

I think sometimes feeling that you've been marginalized opens you up to the realization that, in their own lives, almost everyone experiences marginalization, a kind of foreigner sense.

All human stories are migration stories because everyone is a refugee from their own childhood.

Time only moves in one direction. Remember that. Things always change.

I think massive migration is inevitable. As sea levels rise, as climate change happens, as fertile fields become arid, as wars are fought, people are going to move. They always have.

When the uncertain future becomes the past, the past in turn becomes uncertain.

It's important to have a non-nostalgic view and say, let's look forward, because if we don't, all we'll hear are voices telling us to go back.

[A young adult novel] ends not with happily ever after, but at a new beginning, with the sense of a lot of life yet to be lived.

There are only two kinds of people in this world

In America, it's quite admirable if someone's done well or been successful at whatever it is. Whereas in Britain, they're not. They only like it when you're the underdog.

Let all our employment be to know God: the more one knows Him, the more one desires to know Him.

John Barry was my hero when I was about 13. His scores to the James Bond movies were the scores of my life back then.

Entertainment is the greatest socializing force in the world.

The picture of me is nearly finished, and I think it is magnificent. The green and blue of the dress is splendid, and the expression as Lady Macbeth holds the crown over her head is quite wonderful.

I've been in politics long enough to know that polls just go poof at times.

Music is so elevated that it is beyond the reach of intellect and there flows from it an influence which is all-potent, and which noone can explain.

Let's not be too quick to blame the human race for everything. A great many species of animals became extinct before man ever appeared on earth.