The anger is useful too because when things about the world upset you, that is really a fertile feeling to channel into fiction and to put out into books.

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.

Too often our intellect gets in the way of our hearts thereby blocking what instinctually can be drawn to us bringing happiness

Love is the strongest force in the world, and when it is blocked that means pain.

I have always been thankful that so many of our country's greatest leaders and statesmen were able to be on this earth at the same time and place to draft the Constitution.

You know, you're a great barbecuetionist.

A false modesty is the meanest species of pride.

When I am making music, I am growing at the same time, ain't I?

I consider myself to be an inverse paranoid. I always operate as if everything is part of a universal plot to enhance my well-being.

I feel that my characters all have some part of my character. I feel that they're all me in some way, certainly not in individuality, but they all bear elements of what I feel.

It was never shameful to learn from any teacher things that are useful to know.

Can you burn me up with holy water? Poke me to death with your crucifix? Pelt me with communion wafers?