Remember that what you have is unique because it's your own special way of looking at the world.

The young women in my classes are feisty and clever and believe, often with the passion of youthful optimism, that feminism is a battle already won. I worry for them - and for my daughters, too.

I'm working on a nonfiction book on Nepal and a novel about diasporas.

The richest most meaningful stories are found in small places: made, carried, crafted, told, and retold by apparently unimportant people.

Sometimes I like to play the soundtracks to famous musicals so we can all sing along. South Pacific is one of my favorites. Our neighbors must hate us.

If you can't return a favor, pass it on.

Never give up. And most importantly, be true to yourself. Write from your heart, in your own voice, and about what you believe in.

I can't pick out one single book that had such a profound personal impact.

It took a brave editor in the U.S. to sign a contract for Dancing Girls, and without her belief in the book, I'm not sure it would ever have found its way into print.

Don't call 'em dogs. Dogs are loyal and they run after balls.

I could write an entertaining novel about rejection slips, but I fear it would be overly long.

I'm not going to join any party. If I do vote again, and if I do become, you know, politically active, it will be independent.

Having a gun in your hand is very empowering.

I want to explain how exhausted I am. Even in my dreams. How I wake up tired. How I’m being drowned by some kind of black wave.

You cannot be a man of faith and live in a day. You do not live in a day if you are a man of faith.

Sometimes I think I was making music through the wrong end of a magnifying glass.

He's not too short. He's just... concentrated.

I have always regarded myself, in the first place, as an African patriot.

For one, thing, the media are dominated by the irreligious. So are universities.

Respectability is the state of never being caught doing anything which gives you pleasure.