Zaleha Hamid Quotes

Europeans should be patient and try to find a formula to resolve this nuclear issue. We are determined to remove any ambiguities over our nuclear ambitions and also protect our right. ~ Hamid-Reza Assefi

flying robots from an alien power regularly strike down from the skies and kill Pakistani citizens. ~ Mohsin Hamid

And so their memories took on potential, which is of course how our greatest nostalgias are born. ~ Mohsin Hamid

Time only moves in one direction. Remember that. Things always change. ~ Mohsin Hamid

You need to decide for yourself whether you want to be a rare jewel or a common flower ~ Norhafsah Hamid

Lahore, the second largest city of Pakistan, ancient capital of the Punjab, home to nearly as many people as New York, layered like a sedimentary plain with the accreted history of invaders from the Aryans to the Mongols to the British. ~ Mohsin Hamid

Your teacher did not want to be a teacher. He wanted to be a meter reader at the electric utility. Meter readers do not have to put up with children, work comparatively little, and what is more important, have greater opportunity for corruption and are hence both better off and held in higher regard by society. ~ Mohsin Hamid

Afghanistan has moved forward and Afghanistan will defend itself. And the progress that we have achieved, the Afghan people will not allow it to be put back or reversed. ~ Hamid Karzai

The gun of the father is always the undoing of the son. ~ Mohsin Hamid

When I wake, it seems a little less hot than usual, so I'm worried I have a fever until light flashes behind the curtains and the sound of a detonation rolls in with a force that makes the windows rattle. As I step outside with a plastic bag over my cast, a stiff breeze pulls my hair away from my face, and I see the pregnant clouds of the monsoon hanging low over the city.
The rains have finally decided to come.
I sit down on the lawn, resting my back against the wall of the house, and light an aitch I've waited a long time to smoke. Suddenly the air is still and the trees are silent, and I can hear laughter from my neighbor's servant quarters. A bicycle bell sounds in the street, reminding me of the green Sohrab I had as a child. Then the wind returns, bringing the smell of wet soil and a pair of orange parrots that swoop down to take shelter in the lower branches of the banyan tree, where they glow in the shadows. ~ Mohsin Hamid

Desire makes slaves out of kings, while patience makes kings out of slaves. ~ Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali

I would never call a neighbor an enemy. But I would request the neighbor to be a good neighbor, to see that the neighbor's interest is a stable prosperous neighbor, a neighbor that is doing well. ~ Hamid Karzai

Maximum return was the maxim to which we returned. ~ Mohsin Hamid

Counsel: Man should yearn to reach a point where the locks to the divine mysteries are opened by his speech, and where he might facilitate by his knowledge what creatures find difficult in religious and worldly affairs, for him to gain a share in the name of opener. ~ Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali

When I'm writing well, I feel happy. And when I go too long without writing, I begin to implode. ~ Mohsin Hamid

The world seems concerned with Pakistan primarily as an actor in global attempts to combat terrorism. ~ Mohsin Hamid

When Hamid dropped Lata off at her house at nine that night, he felt hollow. The touch of her soft body was sheared from him like bark from a tree, and he spent the entire night tossing and turning. ~ Saadat Hasan Manto

One of the keys to achieving understanding is humility. ~ Norhafsah Hamid

You're a watchful guy. you know where that comes from?" I shook my head. "It comes from feeling out of place," he said. "Believe me. I know. ~ Mohsin Hamid

She had the bizarre feeling of time bending all around her, as though she was from the past reading about the future, or from the future reading about the past. ~ Mohsin Hamid

Islam is not dark but very bright indeed. Islam is not depressing but instead, quite uplifting and inspiring. Islam is not about censoring but instead it is about voluntary submission. ~ Norhafsah Hamid

Lived religion is a very different thing from strict textual analysis. Very few people of any faith live their lives as literalist interpretations of scripture. Many people have little or no knowledge of scripture at all. Many others who have more knowledge choose to interpret what they know in ways that are convenient, or that fit their own moral sense of what is good. Still others view their religion as a kind of self-accepted ethnicity, but live lives utterly divorced from any sense of faith. ~ Mohsin Hamid

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

The Prophet said in a sermon: Blessed is he whose concern for his own faults keeps him away of finding fault of others, who spends out of his lawful earnings, keeps company with theologians and the wise, and spurns the sinners and the wicked people. Blessed is he who humbles himself, makes his conduct refined, heart good and does not do harm to the people. Blessed is he who acts up to his knowledge, spends his surplus wealth, abstains from superfluous talks, follows sunnah and does not introduce innovations. ~ Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali

I am sometimes asked to name my favourite books. The list changes, depending on my mood, the year, tricks played by memory. I might mention novels by Nabokov and Calvino and Tolkien on one occasion, by Fitzgerald and Baldwin and E.B. White on another. Camus often features, as do Tolstoy, Borges, Morrison and Manto. ~ Mohsin Hamid

I was 30 when 9/11 happened and I had lived exactly 15 years of life in America, so I was half American. I was a full-fledged New Yorker. ~ Mohsin Hamid

We are not America. We are Afghanistan. ~ Hamid Karzai

I must not expect everyone to act or think like I do as God has created each of us differently. ~ Norhafsah Hamid

The ruins proclaim the building was beautiful. ~ Mohsin Hamid

Literature helps us transcend ourselves. ~ Mohsin Hamid