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" As a young boy in Libya, it was hard to escape the conclusion that the women were the most feeling and most functional part of society. "

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" I think my generation's inability to speak in absolute terms when it comes to politics is a very positive thing; it's made us more nuanced, made us more complex. "

" There's something very bizarre about having a father who has disappeared. It's very hard to articulate. "

" Audacity, hope, courage - the Libyans have these in abundance. But all those boring little things - like organization, building a committee - is hard; making decisions and moving ahead is hard. "

" My work is my shelter, particularly in these moments when things are happening fast. "

" Whenever I was encouraged by my elders to pick up a book, I was often told, 'Read so as to know the world.' And it is true; books have invited me into different countries, states of mind, social conditions and historical epochs; they have offered me a place at the most unusual gatherings. "

" In 2006, I published my first novel, 'In the Country of Men.' The publication of the book gave me a bigger platform to speak about my father's abduction and Libya's human-rights record. "

" The cost of Colonel Gaddafi's rule on Libyan society is incalculable. "

" Throughout my entire life, I have lived in the shadow of the dictatorship. It denied me safety and security. "

" I don't believe people are interested in dates and facts. I don't think it is interesting to say what it is to be this person or that, but I do believe it is entertaining and perhaps even of value to express how it is to be that person. "

" One of the reasons why Gadafy's dictatorship has managed to remain in power for so long is not just because it has shown itself to be able to exact a great deal of violence, both psychological and physical, on its people, but because it has been very successful at imposing a narrative, a story. "

" When you've been living in hope for a long time as I have, suddenly you realize that certainty is far more desirable than hope. "

" Nothing makes you feel more stupid than learning a new language. You lose your confidence. You want to disappear. Not be noticed. Say as little as possible. "

" When I'm writing, my mood is very good - and I love life. "

" Gaddafi's ability to have survived so long rests on his convenient position in not being committed to a single ideology and his use of violence in such a theatrical way. "

" My father, the political dissident Jaballa Matar, disappeared from his home in Cairo in March 1990. "

" One of the frustrations of prison life, which is also one of its intended consequences, is that the prisoner is made ineffective. He is unable to be of much use. The aim is to render him powerless. "

" In Libya, I did well at school because I was clever. In Egyptian public school, I got the highest marks for the basest of reasons. And in the American school, I struggled. Everything - mathematics, the sciences, pottery, swimming - had to be conducted in a language I hardly knew and that was neither spoken in the streets nor at home. "

" I don't remember a time when words were not dangerous. "

" I can pinpoint the exact moment when I first began to think about what profession I should go into. It was 1978. I was seven and had just been handed over by the women of my family to the earnest and self-important gatherings of the men. I was no longer the responsibility of my aunts and older female cousins. I was now a man. This was a tragedy. "

" In the same way that Egypt and Libya conspired to 'disappear' my father and silence writers such as Idris Ali, they made me, too, to a far lesser extent, feel punished for speaking out. "

" I've never been particularly interested in genre distinctions. They seem to me more useful to a librarian than to a writer. "

" Over the centuries, close-knit tribes have played an important part in the cohesion of Libyan society. "

" Grenfell, the building set on fire with the help of its own face, is a scene of a complex injustice: one that is moral, economic, political, and aesthetic. Not only was the cladding unsafe, it was ugly; not only was it ugly, it was untrue both to the architecture of the building it covered and untrue to its responsibility to human safety. "

" It is easy to underestimate the demands of an open heart. "

" My parents were fairly laid-back, but there were certain things about which they were very strict. My brother and I were told never to turn away a person in need. And it didn't matter what we thought of their motives, whether they were truly in need or not. "

" Some of the most powerful memories are those when you are very, very young. Adult life is seen through the reflection of complex, rational thought. "

" I get a lot of energy from making things up, which is why I feel I'm a novelist. "

" Like most dictators, Col Gaddafi detests the metropolis. His vision of Libya is a kind of Bedouin romantic medievalism, suspicious of universities, theatres, galleries and cafes, and so monitors the cities' inhabitants with paranoid suspicion. "

" From before I was born, we Arabs have been caught between two forces that, seemingly, cannot be defeated: our ruthless dictators, who oppress and humiliate us, and the cynical western powers, who would rather see us ruled by criminals loyal to them than have democratically elected leaders accountable to us. "

" My best hope is that Libya turns into a peaceful, sensible country that has all the things my father and lots of others have been calling for: independence of the courts and press, a protected and democratic constitution, with different parties involved in a healthy and open debate. "