Mohsin Hamid Quotes

A third layer of nativeness was composed of those whom others thought directly descended, even the tiniest fraction of their genes, from the human beings who had been brought from Africa centuries ago...

There was also closeness, for the end of a couple is like a death, and the notion of death, of temporariness, can remind us of the value of things.

A raindrop strikes the lawn, sending up a tiny plume of dust. Others follow, a barrage of dusty explosions bursting all around me. The leaves of the banyan tree rebound from their impact. The parrots...

I commit her to memory. When I'm alone, I feel a strange yearning, the hunger of a man fasting not because he believes but because he's ashamed. Not the cleansing hunger of the devout, but the feveris...

When I wake, it seems a little less hot than usual, so I’m worried I have a fever until light flashes behind the curtains and the sound of a detonation rolls in with a force that makes the windows rat...

Secrets make life more interesting. You can be in a crowded room with someone and touch them without touching, just with a look, because they know a part of you no one else knows. And whenever you're...

In their phones were antennas, and these antennas sniffed out an invisible world, as if by magic, a world that was all around them, and also nowhere, transporting them to places distant and near, and...

A revolver is) just a tool, really, like stapler. A stapler that punch through a person. Pin them. Drive blunt metal through flesh and bone.

The poets say some moths will do anything out of love for a flame[...]The moth takes off again, and we both step back, because he's circling at eye level now and seems to have lost rudder control, sma...

There's a reason prophets perform miracles: language lacks the power to describe faith. And you have to land on faith before you can even begin to hike around to its flip side, betrayal.

I walk in the direction she tells me. I feel my pores opening, sweat and heat radiating out of my body. A firefly dances in the distance, leaving tracers, and if I turn my head from side to side, I se...

Slowly, even though I thought it would never happen, New York lost its charm for me. I remember arriving in the city for the first time, passing with my parents through the First World's Club bouncers...

All sorts of strange people were around, people who looked more at home than she was, even the homeless ones who spoke no English, more at home maybe because they were younger, and when she went out i...

The air is so dry, so clear, and there's so few people, almost no lights. And you can lie on your back and look up and see the Milky Way. All the stars like a splash of milk in the sky. And you see th...

Lightning’s echo comes as thunder. And the city waits for thunder’s echo, for a wall of heat that burns Lahore with the energy of a thousand summers, a million partitions, a billion atomic souls split...

I'm interested in things women do that aren't spoken about. Manto's stories let me breathe. They make me feel like less of a monster.

She’s drawn to me just as I’m drawn to her. She can’t keep away. She circles, forced to keep her distance, afraid of abandoning her husband and, even more, her son for too long. But she keeps coming,...

I have this thing about friends and secrets. Sometimes when I meet a person I like, I tell them a secret they don't know me well enough to be told. It lets me judge their potential as a friend.

Information is key at these things: no one wants to be caught holding social stock that’s about to crash.

Pride tells me to give it back, but common sense tells pride to shut up, have a joint and relax. I shrug and put the note into my wallet.