The fury of those nativists advocating wholesale slaughter was what struck Nadia most, and it struck her because it seemed so familiar, so much like the fury of the militants in her own city. She wondered whether she and Saeed had done anything by moving, whether the faces and buildings had changed, but the basic reality of their predicament had not.

— Mohsin Hamid

The mountain trembled like an earthquake. Dust flew into the sky. And the rock turned dark red, like the color of blood'. 'How would you know?' Asks Sindhi cap. 'You only have a black and white television'.' But it's a very good one. You can almost see colors.

— Mohsin Hamid

The news in those days was full of war and migrants and nativists, and it was full of fracturing too, of regions pulling away from nations, and cities pulling away from hinterlands, and it seemed that as everyone was coming together everyone was also moving apart. Without borders nations appeared to be becoming somewhat illusory, and people were questioning what role they had to play.

— Mohsin Hamid

There's a reason prophets perform miracles: language lacks the power to describe faith. And you have to land on faith before you can even begin to hike around to its flip side, betrayal.

— Mohsin Hamid

Time is our most precious currency. So it’s significant that we are being encouraged, wherever possible, to think of our attention not as expenditure but as consumption. This blurring of labor and entertainment forms the basis, for example, of the financial alchemy that conjures DECA-billion-dollar valuations for social-networking companies.

— Mohsin Hamid

We are all migrants through time.

— Mohsin Hamid

What did I think of Princeton? Well, the answer to that question requires a story. When I first arrived, I looked around me at the Gothic buildings — younger, I later learned, than many of the mosques of this city, but made through acid treatment and ingenious stone-masonry to look older...

— Mohsin Hamid

What happens is my mind starts to go in circles, thinking and thinking, and then I can't sleep. And once a couple of days go by, if you haven't slept, you start to get sick. You can't eat. You start to cry. It just feeds on itself.

— Mohsin Hamid

When I travel, I feel more like a nomad than a tourist.

— Mohsin Hamid

When terrorism strikes, divisive anger is a natural response.

— Mohsin Hamid