Skip to content

People Quotes by Mohsin Hamid

48 People quotes by Mohsin Hamid

All People quotes Mohsin Hamid’s page

Writing, for Hamid, isn’t about giving answers. He says a book should be short enough that readers want to read it twice, not just skim. He also notes how a single bad review can linger for years while many good ones fade, and he worries about being boxed into a single activist style.

Rate this collection: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ No ratings yet

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

Image

For many people, there is an almost power to be found in prayer.

Image

We should be very skeptical of people who want to place limits on how we express ourselves.

Image

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

Image

I don't want to be a Michael Moore-style artist, which is not to disparage Michael Moore. But he seems rather unsuccessful at…

Image

Lived religion is a very different thing from strict textual analysis. Very few people of any faith live their lives as literalist…

Image

Violent cities, people who live in violent cities, find a way - as New Yorkers did 30 or 40 years ago -…

Image

I think there's a growing courage among the younger generation of American writers. Because of the more superficial treatment of characters taking…

Image

We're being subject to incredible amounts of surveillance, the police are taking on draconian powers and violating our rights. I think this…

Image

I'm often surprised that, you know, you encounter all types of humanity. And very often, there are some very decent people who…

Image

Farmers and people who make a living from the land are finding it impossible to survive. So the first step is to…

Image

I've realized that it's important to stop trying to think I'm any one thing. People are confused as to their identity and…

Image

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

Image

Part of the reason people abroad resent the United States is something Americans can do very little about: envy. The richest, most…

Image

I think we should be prepared, given environmental and political change for large-scale migration. If sea levels rise and 200 million people…

Image

Our countries are weaker: they cannot protect us from imported goods, they can't protect us from climate change, they cannot protect us…

Image

Well, one thing that has changed is the number of people killed by terrorists in Pakistan. Civilians killed has gone down really…

Image

Being outside the candy store looking in is the state of people today. Whether you're in a Pakistani village watching somebody in…

Image

I think that right now, the global political crisis that we see all over the place has to do with virulent nostalgia.…

Image

I think wars, climate change, all that stuff is going to move people. And so I wanted to say, "What if the…

Image

I like the idea of an open, international London that thrives on attracting hard-working, talented people but has the confidence to tell…

Image

I don't think the function of writing, at least for me as a fiction writer, is to say to people, "Here's the…

Image

I think that people are going to move. They always have and that's going to continue. The question is, how are we…

Image

NYC doesn't have a big sign saying "You must love diversity and the rights of all people." And that's not what makes…

Image

Four thousand years ago, we, the people of the Indus River basin, had cities that were laid out on grids and boasted…

Image

Television has given Pakistan a truly open national forum for the first time in its history. Ideas are debated, leaders are assessed…

Image

Most Muslims do not 'choose' Islam in the way that they choose to become doctors or lawyers, nor even in the way…

Image

Lahore, the second largest city of Pakistan, ancient capital of the Punjab, home to nearly as many people as New York, layered…

Image

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

Image

I think the most effective forms of critique are ones that establish a common ground for people to occupy, and then appeal…

Image

I think massive migration is inevitable. As sea levels rise, as climate change happens, as fertile fields become arid, as wars are…

Image

Artists are in the imagining/ prototyping business. Society needs people to be out there thinking of what might be. That cannot be…

Image

I think the idea of migration through time is very important because every human being does that and it unites us with…

Image

There is a huge sense of loneliness as people leave villages and move to cities. It's hard to find that human connection…

Image

For people who are at the bottom economically, the world is becoming a harder and harder place. And yet the incentives to…

Image

My mother has been to Mecca to perform her hajj; my dad hasn't. I come from a very liberal family, so even…

Image

Some of my relatives held on to imagined memories the way homeless people hold onto lottery tickets. Nostalgia was their crack cocaine,…

Image

When people, particularly young people and especially young men, can't imagine themselves as heroes in narratives that they construct for themselves, they…

Image

I think the beard helps offset - it's the only hairstyle I can really pull off. But I'm often clean-shaven. I think,…

Image

If my daughter wanted to wear a headscarf and dress in a religiously conservative way, I would be heartbroken. But if she…

Image

Other authors on People

More by Mohsin Hamid

Pakistan now is like a horror film franchise. You know, it's 'Friday the 13th, Episode 63: The Terrorist from Pakistan.' And each time we…

A beard is something that is almost like a mirror to the viewer. When someone sees you wearing a beard, they're seeing something in…

And also I think the rise of other, you could say, destinations for international jihadis mean that Pakistan isn't necessarily the place where people…

“I met her eyes, and for the first time I perceived that there was something broken behind them, like a tiny crack in a…

“muscularity, made more pronounced by her gauntness, and the near-inanimate”

“In this group, everyone was foreign, and so, in a sense, no one was.”

“It seemed to me then - and to be honest, sir, seems to me still - that America was engaged only in posturing. As…

When the uncertain future becomes the past, the past in turn becomes uncertain.

When the machine of a human being is turned on, it seems to produce a protagonist, just as a television produces an image.

I think fiction allows you to inhabit new domains and it's you, the reader living in that domain for a few days that results…

“Often, during my stay in your country, such comparisons troubled me. In fact, they did more than trouble me: they made me resentful. Four…

Americans need to educate themselves, from elementary school onward, about what their country has done abroad. And they need to play a more active…

I'm not a representative of Pakistan; I'm just an example that Pakistanis are different from each other. I believe it in my fiction and…

“end of a couple is like a death, and the notion of death, of temporariness, can remind us of the value of things,”

NYC doesn't have a big sign saying "You must love diversity and the rights of all people." And that's not what makes you love…