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" Books have shown me horror and beauty. "

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" Growing up in the Libya of the 1970s, I remember the prevalence of local bands who were as much influenced by Arabic musical traditions as by the Rolling Stones or the Beatles. But the project of 'Arabisation' soon got to them, too, and western musical instruments were declared forbidden as 'instruments of imperialism.' "

" Civil war is a national crisis and also a private trauma: We suffer it collectively and in isolation. "

" I sometimes wonder if I would have become a writer if what happened to my father hadn't happened. "

" Living in hope is a really terrible thing. "

" Ivan Turgenev's novella 'First Love' is one of the most perfect things ever written. "

" 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. "

" It is evident that Qaddafi is mentally unwell. Like Richard III, he has barricaded himself within lies. "

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

" 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. "

" A revolution is not a painless march to the gates of freedom and justice. It is a struggle between rage and hope, between the temptation to destroy and the desire to build. "

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

" I ultimately write for myself and the people I love. "

" Gaddafi tried to give a masterclass to men like the Syrian dictator, Bashar al-Assad, on how to crush a civilian uprising. "

" I am, by instinct, wary of revolutions. The gathering of the masses fills me with trepidation. "

" 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. "

" There is a tendency to over-exaggerate and over-romanticise the place of a writer in a revolution. That bothers me. I think it's inappropriate. "

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

" My earliest memory of books is not of reading but of being read to. I spent hours listening, watching the face of the person reading aloud to me. "

" From my family alone, Qaddafi had imprisoned five men. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Turgenev's achievement lies in how he succeeded, in spite of himself, his country, and his time, in exempting his work from public duty. This has given it that unnameable quality that makes every sentence true, every silence trustworthy. "

" Architecture remains a passion and a subject I'm very interested in. I learned a great deal from studying it and working in it. "

" I am terribly interested in the paragraph: the paragraph as an object, the construction, and the possibilities of what a paragraph can do. "

" The Qaddafis, father and sons, speak the grammar of dictatorship: threats and bribery. "

" I hope and pray that I'll be one of those fortunate people who have many, many books to write. I don't begrudge writing. I love the whole thing! "

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

" There are two voices: the first says write; the second hardly speaks, but I know what he wants. And if I let him, nothing would get done. He hovers at the edges. "

" 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. "

" Switching languages is a form of conversion. And like all conversions, whether it's judged a failure or a success, it excites the desire to leave, go elsewhere, adopt a new language and start all over again. It also means that a conscious effort is demanded to remain still. "