A common strand appeared to unite these conflicts, and that was the advancement of a small coterie’s concept of American interests in the guise of the fight against terrorism, which was defined to refer only to the organized and politically motivated killing of civilians by killers not wearing the uniforms of soldiers. I recognized that if this was to be the single most important priority of our species, then the lives of those of us who lived in lands in which such killers also lived had no meaning except as collateral damage. This, I reasoned, was why America felt justified in bringing so many deaths to Afghanistan and Iraq, and why America felt justified in risking so many more deaths by tacitly using India to pressure Pakistan.

— Mohsin Hamid

America's strength has made it a sort of Gulliver in world affairs: By wiggling its toes it can, often inadvertently, break the arm of a Lilliputian.

— Mohsin Hamid

And I ask myself what it is about me that makes this wonderful, beautiful woman return. Is it because I'm pathetic, helpless in my current state, completely dependent on her? Or is it my sense of humor, my willingness to tease her, to joke my way into painful, secret places? Do I help her understand herself? Do I make her happy? Do I do something for her that her husband and son can't do? Has she fallen in love with me? As the days pass and I continue to heal, my body knitting itself back together, I begin to allow myself to think that she has.

— Mohsin Hamid

And so their memories took on potential, which is of course how our greatest nostalgia are born.

— Mohsin Hamid

And with a last star drop, a last circle, I arrive, and she's there, chemical wonder in her eyes.

— Mohsin Hamid

A single strand appeared to unite these conflicts, and that was the advancement of a small coterie's concept of American interests in the guise of the fight against terrorism... I recognized that if this was to be the single most important priority of our species, then the lives of those of us who lived in lands in which such killers also lived had no meaning except as collateral damage.

— Mohsin Hamid

A third layer of naïveness 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 as slaves. While this layer of naïveness was not vast in proportion of the rest, it had vast importance, for society had been shaped in reaction to it. An unspeakable violence had occurred in relation to it, and yet it endured, fertile, a stratum of soil that perhaps made possible all future transplanted soils.

— Mohsin Hamid

But it wasn't the right season to lift off. Not yet. I sat in my apartment and looked out over the city, and I just didn't feel any passion to write about the place. I didn't give a damn about local politics; I wasn't moved by the issues. Furthermore, I missed home. And I was frustrated by people who actually thought the world was a center and that center was here. ‘The world's a sphere, everyone,’ I wanted to say. ‘The center of a sphere doesn't lie on its surface. Look up the word 'superficial', when you have a chance.

— Mohsin Hamid

But since the subsequent US invasion of Afghanistan, terrorists have killed many times that number of people in Pakistan. Tens of thousands have died here in terror and counterterror violence, slain by bombs, bullets, cannons, and drones. America's 9/11 has given way to Pakistan's 24/7/365. The battlefield has been displaced. And in Pakistan it is much more bloody.

— Mohsin Hamid

Children are excellent judges of character, you know

— Mohsin Hamid