“How could God be so cruel as to create a Muslim woman with so much flesh and so little sex appeal?”

“A good novel is one that shows the complexity of individuals, and creates enough space for all these characters to have a voice; in this way a novel is called democratic - not that it advocates democracy but that by nature it is so. Empathy lies at the heart of Gatsby, like so many other great novels - the biggest sin is to be blind to others' problems and pains. Not seeing them means denying their existence.”

“Do not, under any circumstances, belittle a work of fiction by trying to turn it into a carbon copy of real life; what we search for in fiction is not so much reality but the epiphany of truth.”

“...do not, under any circumstances, belittle a work of fiction by trying to turn it into a carbon copy of real life; what we search for in fiction is not so much reality but the epiphany of truth.”

“Reality has become so intolerable, she said, so bleak, that all I can paint now are the colors of my dreams.”

“The novels were an escape from reality in the sense that we could marvel at their beauty and perfection. Curiously, the novels we escaped into led us finally to question and prod our own realities, about which we felt so helplessly speechless.”

“As women, do we have the same rights as men to enjoy sex? How many of us would say yes, we do have a right, we have a equal right to enjoy sex, and if our husbands don't satisfy us, then we have a right to seek satisfaction elsewhere.”