Translated books rarely get reviewed in the press. Books or poems or works of art that don't seem to have a corresponding style or figure or theme, obviously they're hard to digest.

Arabs don't do crime fiction. I read crime fiction and I read Arabic literature, and I wish this was a novel I could have read in Arabic.

Academic writing you have to get right. Fiction you have to get plausible. And there's a world of difference.

It does not take much to imagine the humanity of people you don't know.

English is a forgiving language. It's not like Classical Arabic and it's not like French. You can speak broken English and be expressive and no one will hold it against you.

We like to look out on the world and see ourselves, so we have many, many novels, memoirs, and short stories in Iraq that are largely about Americans in Iraq, doing what Americans do.

Noir is where the clarity of moral divisions break down, the black and whites turn into grays.

When you're writing your own fiction, you don't have to ride two horses.

If I have learned how to write fiction it's by working with great writers and getting them to explain their craft to me so that I can do it in English.

Once you have the first draft it's living, and you can coax it to grow and trim it and reshape it and so on. But get that first draft.

I think if I'd gone to an MFA program and learned that, it would have been money well spent. But translation has been that for me.

You can't retire to weakness -- you've got to learn to control strength.

I needed a break...from myself.

The aim of law is the maximum gratification of the nervous system of man.

The rose does not have a why; it blossums without reason, forgetful of self and oblivious to our vision.

You can never discount the pleasure of showing up to work with Scarlett Johansson and now Cobie Smulders. That's just a day that's easy on your eyes.

Take what you need, and find solace where you can.

When you make the present moment, instead of past and future, the focal point of your life, your ability to enjoy what you do and with it the quality of your life increases dramatically.

I was a pretty disruptive student in class in school. I had a hard time paying attention. I had what they call A.D.D. now, back then I was just a hyper kid.

Rachel, my itchy witch," Al said as he tugged the lace at his cuffs. "We've talked about this. You simply must stop collecting nasty little men. How many do you really need, love?

Love which is only an episode in the life of men, is the entire history of the life of women.