No sight better expresses the politics of aid, the dynamics of the West and the developing countries, than the image of children, happy or in need.
Everything new is on the rim of our view, in the darkness, below the horizon, so that nothing new is visible but in the light of what we know.
That’s another argument for writing: making something that outlasts you.
Since when did books ever solve anything? They only raise more questions than they answer, otherwise they’re just fucking entertainment, and I am not here to fucking entertain you.
When evil enters the world, do you think it comes with horns and cloven feet, billowing some foul stench?
Then, as now, I believe that the English use language to hide what they mean.
Our choices are made, our will flexed, in the teeth of events that overwhelm us and devour us.
It’s always nice to learn a thing or two from a novel, don’t you think?
It is no consolation to reflect that every cause itself is an effect, making the search for causes and reasons a fool’s errand.
How many senators have taken their conception of what America can do from what they’ve seen on the American movie screen?
I wasn’t as untrusting. I had faith in the goodness of people, the perfection of love.What happened?Everything ends. And it’s how they end that leaves the lasting effect.
Is that not the Promethean fable, that the fire stolen from the gods will light men their way even while it burns their hands?
Yes, they mean well, but the only good that an absence of malice guarantees is a clear conscience.
An exile, said Zafar, is a refugee with a library.