26 quotes
She had not been in a real home for a long time.
The Translator (1999)
I find myself excited about reading African historical fiction more than other genres because it feels to me that this is actually new and exciting.
Interview (2023)
Keep your faith within your heart even if your tongue is forced to say otherwise.
River Spirit (2023)
One mother could look after twelve children and decades later these twelve adults would fidget and struggle to look after that one mother.
Bird Summons (2019)
The blow, inevitable in itself, comes straight from the source without any intermediaries.
I just want people to say to me, these are real characters. Then I’m happy. It doesn’t matter whether it’s sympathetic or not.
Interview (2023)
Who would care if I became pregnant, who would be scandalized?
What ages you faster, suffering or experience?
Words on a page were seductive, free, inviting everyone, without distinction.
Lyrics Valley (2010)
I wanted to be good but I wasn't sure if I was prepared.
I am not oppressed simply because I have, thank God, been spared the causes of oppression: poverty, war, destitution, abuse, illness and ignorance.
Restraint? Sure. Oppression? Hardly." article (2007)
When it’s fair trade, it’s blessed, and when it’s unfair it’s an injustice. That is the way of the world. Everyone wants something and they barter to get it.
River Spirit (2023)
Control yourself, it is not worth it. You will regret your rudeness afterwards, your sensitive nature will be troubled.
As if reading his mind, Jamal-al-Din said, 'To get what you love, you must first be patient with what you hate." (p61)
The Kindness of Enemies (2015)
The role of art should be to bear witness to the truth no matter how complex or disturbing or dangerous.
Interview with World Literature Today (2019)
The Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, said, When Allah loves a people, He tries them.
Lyrics Valley (2010)
And why is it that so many years later it is so easy to distinguish the bullies from their prey? Adult bodies surrounding the children of long ago. The years have changed nothing.
I'm not middle-class; I do not have a degree. I am upper-class without money.
The sweetest things in life were not necessarily what one strove for and grabbed. Instead, many many times the All-Merciful, the All-Generous would give His servants without being petitioned, without waiting to be asked.
A snake might not remember the year before, the month before. That desire to know, to check, to measure against, was human. (p233)
Bird Summons (2019)