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

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" My family settled in Cairo in 1980. I was nine. I missed Libya terribly, but I also took to Cairo. I perfected the accent. People assumed I was Egyptian. "

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

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

" 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. "

" I've very aware of my rootlessness. "

" 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. "

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

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

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

" 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. "

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

" I think, ultimately, I am a sensualist and an aesthete. "

" 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. "

" The romantic idea of the penniless writer is false. It's terrible. I hated being in debt. I hated the anxiety of not knowing whether we could pay our rent that month. Thankfully, I had a wife who was very supportive and had faith and shared my madness. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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 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. "

" We have defeated Gaddafi on the battlefield; now we must defeat him in our imagination. We must not allow his legacy to corrupt our dream. Let's keep focused on the true prize: unity, democracy, and the rule of law. Let's not seek revenge; that would diminish our future. "

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

" Books have shown me horror and beauty. "

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

" The laws of the lowly gangster govern Qaddafi and his sons. "

" I lost my father when I was 19, so the majority of my life has been under this cloud, and I have been full of the intention to find out what happened. "

" 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. "

" The Arab Spring, with all of its failings and failures, exposed the lie that if we are to live, then we must live as slaves. It was an attempt to undermine not only the orthodoxy of dictatorship but also an international political orthodoxy where every activity must be approved by the profit logic of the 'ledger.' "

" The Arab Spring is a powerful and compelling response not only to an age of tyranny but also to the remnant chains of imperial influence. "