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The monolithic view that many Americans have of Pakistani culture is as inaccurate as the monolithic view that many Pakistanis have of American culture.

Mohsin Hamid

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Mohsin Hamid
Age: 53
Born: 1971
Born: July 23
Novelist
Writer
Many
Monolithic
Pakistani
Inaccurate
Americans
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Views
American
Culture
Pakistanis

More quotes by Mohsin Hamid

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We're all united in this, that every human being migrates through time, that the place we grew up in in our childhood is gone when we're in our 50s and 60s and 70s.
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The world seems concerned with Pakistan primarily as an actor in global attempts to combat terrorism.
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When people talk about the death of the novel, they are speaking of the need for the birth of something different.
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Walking is very good for writers. There's something fundamentally useful about not talking to anybody, not looking at a screen, and being in nature - even if that nature is an urban environment.
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All over the world, the nativist perspective is being privileged over those who are more recent arrivals.
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Love is transient even on a very personal level. We lose everyone that we love. Sometimes we drift apart and sometimes we die.
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Lived religion is a very different thing from strict textual analysis. Very few people of any faith live their lives as literalist interpretations of scripture.
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We should be very skeptical of people who want to place limits on how we express ourselves.
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I am not much of a researcher as a novelist I write mainly from experience.
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When the uncertain future becomes the past, the past in turn becomes uncertain.
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Some of my relatives held on to imagined memories the way homeless people hold onto lottery tickets. Nostalgia was their crack cocaine, if you will, and my childhood was littered with the consequences of their addiction : unserviceable debts, squabbles over inheritances, the odd alcoholic or suicide.
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Our countries are weaker: they cannot protect us from imported goods, they can't protect us from climate change, they cannot protect us from epidemics. These things cross borders. But the kind of cooperation that would protect us from those things was completely lacking and because of this there's been a backlash. People feel vulnerable.
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Empathy is about finding echoes of another person in yourself.
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You're never rude,' she said, smiling, 'and I think it's good to be touchy sometimes. It means you care.
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For me, writing a novel is like solving a puzzle. But I don't intend my novels as puzzles. I intend them as invitations to dance.
Mohsin Hamid
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What else is belief but direction?
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Capitalism is like the law of the jungle with a few rules. There isn't another system that works for our society but left unchecked, capitalism can have a dehumanising effect.
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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 their own imagination because it's still me whether I'm bearded or not.
Mohsin Hamid
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My earliest memories are of watching Star Trek and MASH while my parents barbecued chicken in the back yard. I was an American kid, through and through.
Mohsin Hamid
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I think the most effective forms of critique are ones that establish a common ground for people to occupy, and then appeal to the best nature of people on that common ground.
Mohsin Hamid