They want me to contain the raging fires within me. They need me to appreciate glowing embers, to understand that even weak flames need to be managed with a lot of careful planning.

There is no denying it, our past stinks and seeps into our present. Occasionally I get such a potent whiff of history that my mind spins and my stomach lurches.

Your mother wasn’t upset. “Scars stay with you so you don’t forget, ” she said. She seemed almost satisfied.

I struggle to discover what these silent sons of mine want, but words have always failed me. They are sullen even as they tell me they are okay. I know they are lying but there is nothing I can do.

The first sound a child hears is very important. It determines character. A Muslim child always hears the Azan first. Words in praise of God. Words to live by.

Difficulties were fires. If you kept them in check, you could learn from them. You simply had to know how to fan them the right way.

But what is the point of buying vegetables in plastic bags? Everything from the supermarket smells of plastic. Everything from the market smells like it’s supposed to.

And you’re beautiful. You’d have to work pretty hard to mess that up.

Look here, my boy, if you have average intelligence, about half the things you do are bound to be right, which is a fair achievement for any career. Don't spend sleepless nights over them.

Slang is a foul pool at which every dunce fills his bucket, and then sets up as a fountain.

Obama behaves like a centrist who leans tentatively left on certain social programs but boldly right on military force and civil liberties.

When you live in a leading lady's body, which I do, you have to constantly prove that you are funny.

Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent.

[Samuel] Johnson's conversation was by much too strong for a person accustomed to obsequiousness and flattery; it was mustard in a young child's mouth!

If it grows, eat it. If it doesn't grow, don't eat it.

When a person understands what sort of existence a human being is, and what exactly the "self" is, that person has been liberated forever.

The future is not set in stone, and even if it was, stone can be broken.