“The shock was akin to that of buying, out of duty, a novel written by a dull and uninspired acquaintance and finding there passages of heartrending beauty and rapture that one could never imagine coming from such a tedious person.”

“One frequently only finds out how really beautiful a women is, until after considerable acquaintance with her.”

“And whosoever fears Allah and keeps his duty to Him, He will make a way for him to get out (from every difficulty).And He will provide him from (sources) he never could imagine.”

“An inspired and infallible passage whose meaning you cannot be sure of is not much more useful than an uninspired, fallible passage.”

“The greatness of poetry comes from its struggle to express the rapture of the soul in the contemplation of beauty.”

“I never could read Foucault. I find philosophy tedious. All of my knowledge comes from reading novels and some history. I read Being and Nothingness and realized that I remembered absolutely nothing when I finished it. I used to go to the library every day and read every day for eight hours. I’d dropped out of high school and had to teach myself. I read Sartre without any background. I just forced myself and I learned nothing.”