Quotes from Tabish Khair

evidently Europeans cannot stop themselves from giving new names to people and places. I guess it must be hard to stop after all those centuries of renaming stuff in the colonies.

I have seen the kids of divorce with their parents: a meeting starts well and ends badly; a meeting starts badly and ends well.

Wasn't she afraid of the violence men can do to women? Yes, she was—where is the woman who isn't—but what sort of man, who takes the name of God, would even speak of such things?

Do you have such periods too? Periods you wish you could go back to, because you let them pass, because you wasted them, not realizing how precious they were? Periods you threw away like—how does the line go—like pearls before swine? Periods that, if only you could turn the wheel of time back to them, you would knit and embroider forever into your being, never letting them go?

Yes, there were thousands of women like them. Yes, they were Muslims. No, they did not think Allah would punish them. No, she was not afraid of what Daesh might do. Yes, that is what she would call them—Daesh—whether they liked it or not. Wasn't she afraid of the violence men can do to women? Yes, she was—where is the woman who isn't—but what sort of man, who takes the name of God, would even speak of such things?

You've said that even if God existed you could not know the mind of God, for that would be a sacrilege from any religious perspective. Divinity is divinity only to the extent that it exceeds the bounds of human understanding, you said. That was one of the statements that made me think of accosting you here. Well, perhaps, happiness is like that too: we cannot really understand the happiness of other people. Or their sorrow.

No, don't think she is weak because she is sobbing; she is a Kurdish girl; she is not weak; never underestimate a Kurdish woman, as you will find out soon, if you haven't yet, you men of Daesh.

Marriage had always been something like the swirling rumours of a distant war; now, suddenly, the cannons were at my doorstep.

Perhaps it is those who are most vulnerable in their hearts who learn to grow the toughest skin.

All order has genocide hidden in its belly. Give it nine months and it will give birth, under clement conditions of course, to a holocaust.

It is in the gap between your imperfections, honestly faced, and your desire for something beyond perfection that you can achieve genius.