“The ultimate decision [of wearing hijab] must be that of the individual. Western opinions on the hijab or burkas are rather irrelevant. We don't get to decide for Muslim women what does or does not...”

“I often tell my students that fiction is about desire in one way or another. The older I get, the more I understand that life is generally the pursuit of desires. We want and want and oh how we wan...”

“We dont necessarily know how to hear stories about any kind of violence, because it is hard to accept that violence is as simple as it is complicated, that you can love someone who hurts you, that ...”

“Racism doesnt care about respectability, wealth, education, or status”

“I dont put that pressure on myself (to write every day), but I do tend to write every day. Its not pressureits pressure release.”

“I love, but I am not entirely sure how to be loved: how to be seen and known for the utterly flawed woman I am. It demands surrender. It demands acknowledging that I am not perfect, but perhaps I d...”

“Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that youve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you sa...”

“As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.”

“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there i...”

“The seeking of a mate shall be undertaken with due preparation and care. A life-bond should never be contemplated as a light thing--unlike a legal union or sanctified joining, the sealing of souls ...”

“I dont have cookie-cutter relationships, Rumi. Women arent iPhone apps that I download and discard!”

“In advising the heads of state to learn from tragedy rather than perpetuate its existence Robert Kennedy excalimed, "Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom, not a guide by which to live." ...”