No there is literally nothing on the business side that I wouldn't sacrifice in a heartbeat to have an extra couple of hours' writing. Nothing.

There is a Japanese proverb that literally goes 'Raise the sail with your stronger hand ' meaning you must go after the opportunities that arise in life that you are best equipped to do.

Being a mother is the best thing that ever happened to me. Before you have your first baby you are a girl and then you become a mother. There is no transition into being a woman you literally become a mum and being a mum means you always love someone else more than yourself and it is an unexplainable situation.

You hear the best stories from ordinary people. That sense of immediacy is more real to me than a lot of writerly literary-type crafted stories. I want that immediacy when I read a novel.

I lead no party I follow no leader. I have given the best part of my life to careful study of Islam its law and polity its culture its history and its literature.

It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed.

Literature boils with the madcap careers of writers brought to the edge by the demands of living on their nerves wringing out their memories and their nightmares to extract meaning truth beauty.

When I was young my Father used to tell me that the two most worthwhile pursuits in life were the pursuit of truth and of beauty and I believe that Alfred Nobel must have felt much the same when he gave these prizes for literature and the sciences.

Literature isn't a moral beauty contest. Its power arises from the authority and audacity with which the impersonation is pulled off the belief it inspires is what counts.

One of the most beautiful passages of Rousseau is that in the sixth book of Confessions where he describes the awakening in him of the literary sense. Of such wisdom the poetic passion the desire of beauty the love of art for its own sake has most.