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" I think the most effective forms of critique are ones that establish a common ground for people to occupy, and then appeal to the best nature of people on that common ground. "
Mohsin Hamid
Ground
People
Best
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" Pakistan now is like a horror film franchise. You know, it's 'Friday the 13th, Episode 63: The Terrorist from Pakistan.' And each time we hear of Pakistan it's in that context. "
Mohsin Hamid
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Know
Horror
" I think I've always been drawn to the second person. When I was growing up and playing with my friends, the usual way we interacted with imaginary worlds was as characters: a bench was 'your' boat, leaves on a lawn were the fins of sharks out to get 'you.' "
Mohsin Hamid
Boat
You
Think
" In writing literary fiction, you are trying to help yourself. And readers are going to literary fiction not just to be entertained, but because they feel something else will happen; that the experience will take them beyond themselves and show them something they haven't seen before. "
Mohsin Hamid
Help
Writing
Experience
" I think that there is a degree of petulance around President Trump and also a degree of sort of blundering incompetence, which is unlike most businesspeople. "
Mohsin Hamid
Incompetence
President
Degree
" I think if you say that art and politics, or religion and politics, mustn't mix, don't mix, that is itself a political statement. Even if you are writing a 19th-century novel where the money comes from a plantation in the Caribbean and you don't talk about that, that itself is a political thing. "
Mohsin Hamid
Religion
Art
Writing
" When the machine of a human being is turned on, it seems to produce a protagonist, just as a television produces an image. "
Mohsin Hamid
Image
Human Being
Human
" It's very easy, if you come from a place like Pakistan, to imagine that there's a narrative of American aggression towards the place that you come from. But that, in itself, is just a political view. "
Mohsin Hamid
Political
American
Place
" There are many cultural scenes in Lahore, just as there are in London. And there is a celebrity culture here, just as there is in London. But in Lahore, the celebrity scene doesn't drown out the rest quite so much. "
Mohsin Hamid
Culture
Rest
London
" Part of the reason people abroad resent the United States is something Americans can do very little about: envy. The richest, most powerful country in the world attracts the jealousy of others in much the same way that the richest, most powerful man in a small town attracts the jealousy of others. "
Mohsin Hamid
Small
Powerful
Jealousy
" There's a real, brutal nature to the capitalism practiced by the main character in 'How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia.' And I think playing dirty is certainly part of that. "
Mohsin Hamid
Rich
Character
Think
" In Sufi terms, there are two very interesting notions of transcendence. One is to gaze out at the universe and to comprehend that what you see out there reflects what you are. The other one is to look inside yourself and recognise that the universe is present there. "
Mohsin Hamid
Yourself
Look
Interesting
" There is a huge sense of loneliness as people leave villages and move to cities. It's hard to find that human connection as you move away from where you started. "
Mohsin Hamid
Connection
Loneliness
People
" Novels are make-believe and play for adults. "
Mohsin Hamid
Make-Believe
Novels
Play
" How many big businesses don't resort to underhand means? "
Mohsin Hamid
Means
Big
How
" I try to write short novels and leave details out not because I want to be minimalist, but because I think that it enables the readers' creativity and interaction with the book. "
Mohsin Hamid
Book
Creativity
Think
" I'd rather create a miniature painting than a Taj Mahal of a book. "
Mohsin Hamid
Painting
Rather
Than
" As a child I read all kinds of stuff, whether it was 'Asterix and Obelix' and 'Tin Tin' comic books, or 'Lord of the Rings,' or Frank Herbert's sci-fi. Or 'The Wind in the Willows.' Or 'Charlotte's Web.' "
Mohsin Hamid
Wind
Lord
Web
" The simple fact of being a human being is you migrate. Many of us move from one place to the other. But even those who don't move, and you stay in the same city, if you were born in Manhattan 70 years ago, you're born in Des Moines 70 years ago, you've lived in the same place for 70 years, the city you live in today is unrecognizable. "
Mohsin Hamid
Simple
City
Live
" I come from an enormous and very close family. I have over a dozen aunts and uncles in Pakistan, dozens of cousins. I have many close friends. I have received so much love in Lahore that the city always pulls me. "
Mohsin Hamid
Family
City
Cousins
" I studied about the internment of Japanese Americans during the Second World War and about how the Constitution was written by men, many of whom were slave owners. So I suppose the travel ban strikes me as coming from an era I thought we'd left behind, but I guess we haven't entirely left it behind. "
Mohsin Hamid
Constitution
World
Men
" I'm not sure if guys are supposed to read Vanity Fair. I feel very metrosexual with it but am not sure it's in my comfort zone. "
Mohsin Hamid
Comfort
Feel
Comfort Zone
" When the forces are aligning against hybridity, it harms everyone, as we are all migrants. Growing up in Pakistan, I know just how oppressive that kind of puritanical mindset can be. "
Mohsin Hamid
Kind
Mindset
Growing Up
" When I travel, I feel more like a nomad than a tourist. "
Mohsin Hamid
Like
Feel
Travel
" Stories helped me unite parts of my existence that might otherwise have seemed irrevocably split by geography and time. And stories helped me find a future in which I, such a mongrel, could be comfortable. "
Mohsin Hamid
Future
Time
Find
" Being outside the candy store looking in is the state of people today. Whether you're in a Pakistani village watching somebody in a car drive by, or you're in the city of Lahore going to a restaurant and seeing somebody with a security entourage coming in... you're exposed to people with more. "
Mohsin Hamid
People
Car
City
" Most Muslims do not 'choose' Islam in the way that they choose to become doctors or lawyers, nor even in the way that they choose to become fans of Coldplay or Radiohead. Most Muslims, like people of any faith, are born into their religion. "
Mohsin Hamid
Faith
Born
Lawyers
" We are each of us composed of atoms, but equally, we are composed by time. "
Mohsin Hamid
Us
Each
Composed
" For a combination of reasons, and despite evident fondness for American products and individuals, my impression is that most Pakistanis have extremely negative views of the U.S. as a geopolitical player. "
Mohsin Hamid
Impression
Negative
Products
" It is not surprising that most Pakistanis do not support America's bombardment of Afghanistan. The Afghans are neighbours on the brink of starvation and devastated by war. America has shown itself to be untrustworthy, a superpower that uses its values as a scabbard for its sword. "
Mohsin Hamid
Values
Support
Sword
" I am not much of a researcher as a novelist; I write mainly from experience. "
Mohsin Hamid
Am
Experience
I Am