Morocco is such a beautiful place. It's incredibly beautiful. And also it is captivating place because for a writer, you feel that you make impact.

Writing is one of the most ancient forms of prayer. To write is to believe communication is possible that other people are good, that you can awaken their generosity and their desire to do better.

The real mistake of women was to let the memoir, the collective, the history, space of producing history - to let it in the hands of men.

Nature is woman's best friend,' she [Yasmina] often said. 'If you're having troubles, you just swim in the water, stretch out in a field, or look up at the stars. That's how a woman cures her fears'.

Being frozen into the passive position of an object whose very existence depends on the eye of its beholder turn the educated modern Western women into a harem slave.

Maturity is when you start feeling the motion of zaman (time) as if it is a sensuous caress. p.216

Pessimism is the luxury of the powerful.

I, as a Muslim woman living in 1993, I want to have two things - the mosque and the satellite, both at the same time. And no one can mutilate me by telling me I cannot have the mosque or the Koran.

I am intelligent enough to be critical towards the West and take what I need and reject what is bad for me.

Someone else is going to read for me or go at my place to the mosque, and/or to tell me you shouldn't take anything from the West because the West is the enemy and so on. It is to me to decide.

But when your situation is hopeless, all you can do is turn the world upside down, transform it according to your wishes, and create anew.

Ireland is where strange tales begin and happy endings are possible.

He that borrows the aid of an equal understanding doubles his own; he that uses that of a superior elevates his own to the stature of that he contemplates.

I love Lady Gaga and I love Katy Perry and R&B and rap music... I love big, American pop music.

What I find trying in a country which you do not understand and where you cannot speak, is that you can never be yourself.

We are told to walk noiselessly through the world, that we may waken neither hatred, nor envy; but, alas! what can we do when they never sleep!

But how did you come burning down like a wild needle, knowing just where my heart was?

I understand my own pictures best six months after I have done them.

Retiring and discovering that you no longer have enough energy to enjoy life and dying a few years out of sheer boredom.

I see the moon like a clipped piece of silver. Like gilded bees the stars cluster round her.

Our company has indeed stumbled onto some of its new products. But never forget that you can only stumble if you're moving.