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" We need a self because the complexity of the chemical processes that make up our individual humanities exceeds the processing power of our brains. "
Mohsin Hamid
Individual
Brains
Power
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" Oftentimes I deliberately put ambiguity into my books so that... the reader is left with an echo of: 'How much of this was from me?' "
Mohsin Hamid
Ambiguity
Much
Me
" In a sense, by closing off the idea that young Muslims, and particularly young Muslim men, can be American heroes, it increases the chance that they'll try to be some other kind of hero. And that, I think, is entirely counterproductive. "
Mohsin Hamid
Hero
Think
Men
" Sufi poetry is, in a sense, self-help poetry about how to live a decent life, how to deal with your mortality. "
Mohsin Hamid
Live
Deal
Life
" I'm not a representative of Pakistan; I'm just an example that Pakistanis are different from each other. I believe it in my fiction and I believe it personally. "
Mohsin Hamid
Example
Different
Believe
" Migration isn't a one-directional process; it's a colossal process that has been happening in all directions for thousands of years. "
Mohsin Hamid
Process
Years
Been
" I don't know if I'm truly at home in any language. "
Mohsin Hamid
Know
Truly
Language
" Like many of my friends in the Pakistani diaspora - and many of my friends in Pakistan itself, for that matter - I have sometimes looked at the country of my birth and wondered whether its future will be one of steady and sad decline. "
Mohsin Hamid
Friends
Country
Birth
" 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
Now
Know
Horror
" I've realized that it's important to stop trying to think I'm any one thing. People are confused as to their identity and try to cling to one aspect of that identity to describe what they are: American, Republican, Muslim. These are really incomplete. "
Mohsin Hamid
Think
Stop
People
" 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
" Given enough time, polar bears might migrate off the Arctic ice, evolve darker coats, find a different diet, and thrive in a new, warmer climate. But if the ice on which they depend disappears in a few decades, they are likely to die. "
Mohsin Hamid
Time
Enough
Die
" If you sit back and simply allow your country to be, it is highly unlikely to be the kind of country you want. You have to be active. "
Mohsin Hamid
You
Back
Active
" If it takes you seven years to write each novel, you need a patron. And I would rather have my corporate self as my patron than any arts council or bestower of grants. "
Mohsin Hamid
Years
Self
You
" I like the idea of an open, international London that thrives on attracting hard-working, talented people but has the confidence to tell them they must play by the same rules as everyone else. "
Mohsin Hamid
Confidence
Play
People
" Literature helps us transcend ourselves. "
Mohsin Hamid
Transcend
Us
Literature
" I think there's a natural link between the fact that our self is a story that we make up and that we're drawn to stories. It resonates, in a way. "
Mohsin Hamid
Story
Fact
Natural
" I think there's a growing courage among the younger generation of American writers. Because of the more superficial treatment of characters taking place in cinema, they have had to deal with that by digging deeper into who these people are. "
Mohsin Hamid
Courage
Think
Place
" 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
" For me, writing a novel is like solving a puzzle. But I don't intend my novels as puzzles. I intend them as invitations to dance. "
Mohsin Hamid
Puzzle
Writing
Like
" Pakistan hasn't been cast in the role of... interesting cultural place or, you know, land of great comedians. "
Mohsin Hamid
Interesting
Great
Know
" 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 am a strong believer in the intertwined nature of the personal and the political; I think they move together. "
Mohsin Hamid
Think
I Am
Together
" Novel writing is the slowest art form in the world. It is not a sprint. It is not even a marathon. It is a series of marathons that stretch over and over across a continent. "
Mohsin Hamid
Over
Writing
Art
" If your sense of self is destabilised, to imagine being another becomes pretty easy. "
Mohsin Hamid
Pretty
Easy
Imagine
" 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
" Growing up in Pakistan in the 1980s, I lived in the shadow of a tyrannical state. "
Mohsin Hamid
Up
Shadow
Lived
" I am not much of a researcher as a novelist; I write mainly from experience. "
Mohsin Hamid
Am
Experience
I Am
" 'Which is stronger, politics or love?' is like asking, 'Which is stronger, exhaling or inhaling?' They are two sides of the same thing. "
Mohsin Hamid
Two
Stronger
Love
" 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