“You don't read Gatsby, I said, to learn whether adultery is good or bad but to learn about how complicated issues such as adultery and fidelity and marriage are. A great novel heightens your senses...”

“Our personal fears and emotions are at times stronger than public danger. By keeping them secret, we allow them to remain malignant. You need to be able to articulate something if you want it to go...”

“...these sleepless nights, when oddly enough my concentration was high, fueled perhaps by the effort to ignore the all-engrossing threat of bombs and rockets.”

“I was reminded of a painter friend who had started her career by depicting scenes from life, mainly deserted rooms, abandoned houses and discarded photographs of women. Gradually, her work became m...”

“All our lives my brother and I were caught by the fictions my parents told usfictions about themselves as well as others. Each wanted us to judge the other in his or her favor. Sometimes I felt che...”

“Both Yassi and I know that we have been losing our faith. We have been questioning it with every move. During the Shah's time, it was different. I felt I was in the minority and I had to guard my f...”

“Writers more interested in literature than the truth ensure that they never come out with either thingone reason that the word literature today sounds so fake, as if you were to insist on saying cu...”

“Publishers, readers, booksellers, even critics, acclaim the novel that one can deliciously sink into, forget oneself in, the novel that returns us to the innocence of childhood or the dream of the ...”

“..... this isn't some LA country rock jam reminiscing on the pyschtotropic pot pansies of Haight Ashbury . This is the soot and smut of London mate !”

“Without meaningful work you might as well be dead.”

“One redeeming feature of human beings is that we must work to sustain our survival. Working attaches people to reality; it creates a survival identity, and provides structure to our life. Work prov...”

“What am I living for and what am I dying for are the same question.”