In times of violence, there is always that first acquaintance or intimate of ours, who, when they are touched, makes what had seemed like a bad dream suddenly, eviscerating real.

— Mohsin Hamid

I push against the tree and run away, stumbling, the unreal night playing with me, gravity pulling from below, behind, above, making me fall. And I run through a world that is rotating, conscious of the earth's spin, of our planet twirling as it careens through nothingness, of the stars spiraling above, of the uncertainty of everything, even ground, even sky. Mumbai never calls out, although a thousand and one voices scream in my mind, sing, whisper, taunt me with madness.

— Mohsin Hamid

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

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 whom these people are.

— Mohsin Hamid

It is possible to adore those newly come into your world, to envision, no matter how late in the day, a happily entwined future with those who have not been part of your past.

— Mohsin Hamid

It is remarkable indeed how we human beings are capable of delighting in the mating call of a flower while we are surrounded by the charred carcasses of our fellow animals.

— Mohsin Hamid

It seemed to me then - and to be honest, sir, seems to me still - that America was engaged only in posturing. As a society, you were unwilling to reflect upon the shared pain that united you with those who attacked you. You retreated into myths of your own difference, assumptions of your own superiority. And you acted out these beliefs on the stage of the world, so that the entire planet was rocked by the repercussions of your tantrums, not least my family, now facing war thousands of miles away. Such an America had to be stopped in the interests not only of the rest of humanity, but also in your own.

— Mohsin Hamid

Language lacks the power to describe Faith.

— Mohsin Hamid

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

Love places someone else in the center of your being and your own self is blurred.

— Mohsin Hamid