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

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" 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. "

" My parents left Libya in 1979, escaping political repression, and settled in Cairo. I was nine. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I used to believe that it was not possible to lose someone I loved without sensing it somehow, without feeling something shift. But it's not true. People can die, sometimes the closest people to us, without us noticing a thing. "

" I used to be a keen rider. Sometimes I could sense what a horse liked or preferred to do. "

" To me, writing is like singing in the most inappropriate place, singing as beautifully as you can on a bus or in a bank, where people least expect it, and trying to get them to want to listen. "

" To be okay with not knowing is a sign of a mature person and a mature society. "

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

" 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. "

" Like all novelists, I'm interested in the filters between reality and the imagination. "

" In the end, madness is worse than injustice, and justice far sweeter than freedom. "

" 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. "

" Great writing fills me with hopeful enthusiasm and never envy. "

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

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

" 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. "

" I've always said - I've always said I'm not, by temperament, a romantic about revolutions or given to revolutions. I've always thought that they are not the ideal way to change. "

" 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. "

" Language is not just a code; you are writing into its history, into its tides. "

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

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

" I've never thought of myself in terms of an identity. I'm always baffled when I encounter someone who gives the impression about being confident about a particular defined identity. "

" When I was 12 years old, living in Cairo, my parents enrolled me in the American school. Most of the Americans there appeared oddly stifled, determined to remain, if not physically then sentimentally, back in the United States. "

" Books have shown me horror and beauty. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

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