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

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" 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. "

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

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

" Political dictatorships take possession not just of money and belongings but of narrative. "

" Dreams have consequences. "

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

" 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 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. "

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

" Making something of loss is, on some level, satisfying. "

" One of the dark truths about dictators - and it applies to Gaddafi - is that on some level, they love their people. But it is a strange love. It says, 'I love you for me; I don't love you for you.' That rhymes with a certain kind of Libyan father who was always certain about what was good for those around him. Those fathers lose in the end. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" We got rid of Muammar Gaddafi. I never thought I would be able to write these words. "

" 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. "

" 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.' "

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

" We need a father to rage against. "

" I admire Turgenev, Camus, Proust and Shakespeare, but I've also learnt a lot about writing from composers and artists. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

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

" 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. "