Books Quotes by Mohsin Hamid

Novels are make-believe and play for adults.

— Mohsin Hamid

A reader should encounter themselves in a novel, I think.

— Mohsin Hamid

Novel writing is solitary work.

— Mohsin Hamid

Readers don't work for writers. They work for themselves.

— Mohsin Hamid

Novels function and the power of novels function because of their stories.

— Mohsin Hamid

Only in novels can we take another human being into our head and create something jointly.

— Mohsin Hamid

I take six or seven years to write really small books. There is a kind of aesthetic of leanness, of brevity.

— Mohsin Hamid

Why the brevity? Because I'd rather people read my book twice than only half-way through

— Mohsin Hamid

I believe one can gauge a book's impact only after about 10 years.

— Mohsin Hamid

I feel no desire to write a novel that takes place in the past.

— Mohsin Hamid

I'd rather create a miniature painting than a Taj Mahal of a book.

— Mohsin Hamid

“Indeed, all books, each and every book ever written, could be said to be offered to the reader as a form of…

— Mohsin Hamid

Nothing good gets written without the writer suffering along the way, in my opinion. Writing should be a pleasure, but unless you…

— Mohsin Hamid

The notion of love as a potentially destructive and potentially redemptive human force is something that comes across in all my books.

— Mohsin Hamid

But when you read a book, what you see are black squiggles on pulped wood or, increasingly, dark pixels on a pale…

— Mohsin Hamid

We think of the romance novel as a lesser form of literature, but I don't think that's true. Love is a very…

— Mohsin Hamid

For me, writing a novel is more like digging a well than climbing a mountain - some heroic thing where I set…

— Mohsin Hamid

Novel writing is the slowest art form in the world. It is not a sprint. It is not even a marathon. It…

— Mohsin Hamid

In Italian, the word for novel is romanzo, "the romance." The English is "novel" - something new. Both of those elements, experimentation…

— Mohsin Hamid

Writing a novel is like an amusement park or a museum or a city. You go into that place and you have…

— Mohsin Hamid

I feel engaged with young people in Pakistan. But that said, it's still a small minority that reads novels, literary fiction. But…

— Mohsin Hamid

When I'm really plugged in I find it difficult to write. It's like digging a well. If you make a void, something…

— Mohsin Hamid

I am sometimes asked to name my favourite books. The list changes, depending on my mood, the year, tricks played by memory.…

— Mohsin Hamid

We are all refugees from our childhoods. And so we turn, among other things, to stories. To write a story, to read…

— Mohsin Hamid

“It is odd, isn’t it? Whenever I read something interesting, I tear out a piece and keep it as a talisman until…

— Mohsin Hamid

My dad had this outlook: It doesn't matter what I want to read - reading was a good thing. So whatever I…

— Mohsin Hamid

For if there were a list of cosmic things that unite us, reader and writer, visible as it scrolled up into the…

— Mohsin Hamid

In writing literary fiction, you are trying to help yourself. And readers are going to literary fiction not just to be entertained,…

— Mohsin Hamid

In a world of intrusive technology, we must engage in a kind of struggle if we wish to sustain moments of solitude.…

— Mohsin Hamid

When people talk about the death of the novel, they are speaking of the need for the birth of something different.

— Mohsin Hamid

For me, writing a novel is like solving a puzzle. But I don't intend my novels as puzzles. I intend them as…

— Mohsin Hamid

If your book is set in the plantation days of the slave-owning South and you write a little romance between two slave…

— Mohsin Hamid

If it takes you seven years to write each novel, you need a patron. And I would rather have my corporate self…

— Mohsin Hamid

I really do believe that people surprise you. And one of the powerful things about novels is that they're about characters, and…

— Mohsin Hamid

I don't want to be anxious on my day-to-day life. I want to try to imagine a future I'd like to live…

— Mohsin Hamid

As a child I read all kinds of stuff, whether it was 'Asterix and Obelix' and 'Tin Tin' comic books, or 'Lord…

— Mohsin Hamid

“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…

— Mohsin Hamid

Oftentimes I deliberately put ambiguity into my books so that... the reader is left with an echo of: 'How much of this…

— Mohsin Hamid

The anger is useful too because when things about the world upset you, that is really a fertile feeling to channel into…

— Mohsin Hamid

I try to write short novels and leave details out not because I want to be minimalist, but because I think that…

— Mohsin Hamid