If you sit back and simply allow your country to be, it is highly unlikely to be the kind of country you want. You have to be active.

I often use nameless places in my work as a way of allowing the readers to create more of the novel and to make it potentially about their experiences, what they know, a city that they have perhaps seen on television.

When the forces are aligning against hybridity, it harms everyone, as we are all migrants. Growing up in Pakistan, I know just how oppressive that kind of puritanical mindset can be.

Mohsin Hamid Quotes