Quotes from Monica Ali

Ma waggled her head in a way that meant don't be silly and also look how much clearing up there is to do. She could speak entire sentences by moving her head and using her eyes.

He wasn't going to let her in. The realization came like the dawn: gradually then all at once.

Will?" said Ma, looking shocked. "Am I a vulture to eat his flesh and bone? And Mr. Ackerman? I should feed on his carcass also?" Mr. Ackerman lived at number 72 and was another beneficiary of Ma's social services. Mr. Coombs, who lived in the bungalow on the corner, was especially partial to Ma's lamb biryani.

Don't worry," said Ma, "I will deal with this." She wobbled her head in a way that suggested she already had things under control. "I will deal with your father, okay?

Very suitable," said Yasmin, which in the Ghorami household was high praise indeed.

I must concentrate on the routine or it will not have the desired effect. Indian clubs are not only for strength, core stability, flexibility, they work also at the neural level—you know this word?—they build the connection between the body and the mind.

Sandor waited. Sometimes the most important work was done in the silences.

Because it shortens the odds against us," said Sandor. "It affords us the opportunity to take control. Because what we do not know controls us.

At the very bottom of things, thought Sandor, there is always this: the addict's belief that they are unlovable.

I have taken time away," said Ma, "now I am going back to your father. You see? Life is not simple. You do not know what will happen with Joe." "Okay, Ma." She wouldn't argue, because Ma had used her best stubborn voice.

What was love anyway, except a biological trick? It was larger doses of hormones like oxytocin and dopamine, which delivered a euphoric rush. It was lower levels of serotonin, which induced anxiety and made you focus obsessively on the object of your "love." It was elevated levels of adrenaline and norepinephrine making your heart flutter and your palms sweat. She liked Joe and he liked her. The rest was a temporary chemical imbalance.

Another is the despair and emptiness they feel inside. I'm okay, they tell you. I'm fine.

People always want to identify a writer with their protagonist.

I wish I got a lie-in on Saturday mornings but I never do.

Kids are naturally inventive and curious and creative, but most adults have had that beaten out of them. Writing is a form of play; you have to get rid of all those internal censors that we adults have, the things that say, 'Don't go there, that's not allowed.'

I don't want to get hung up on what 'people,' that nebulous mass, think about me. That's the way to unhappiness, I think.

I started writing 'Brick Lane' when my children were two years and five months old. We were on holiday in the north of England when I was overtaken by a compulsion to start writing.

I always try to create conflict and drama in my books; it's the engine of the novel.

I like Beryl Bainbridge a great deal, and she is a writer who absolutely demands to be read a second, third, and fourth time. I admire her great courage in leaving so much unsaid and asking the reader to really engage her brain.

I guess there's a sort of cycle with writing books. There's all the researching and then the imagining and writing - which is the real job - and then there's always a period when the book comes out and you have to lift your head and venture out.

I rarely get a moment to myself, but I love the way that my agenda is dictated by the children, not my work.

The thing about getting older is that you don't need everything to be possible any more, you just need things to be certain.

Sometimes I look back and I am shocked. Everyday of my life I have prepared for success, worked for it, waited for it, and you don't notice how the days pass until nearly a lifetime is finished. Then it hits you--the thing you have been waiting for has already gone by. And it was going in the other direction. It's like I've been waiting on the wrong side of the road for a bus that was already full." p. 265

She touched his hand for the last time. "Oh, Karim, that we have already done. But always there was a problem between us. How can I explain? I wasn't me, and you weren't you. From the very beginning to the very end, we didn't see things. What we did--we made each other up." p. 382