Quotes from Leila Aboulela

I like talking to you,' he said, slowly. 'Why?' That was the way to hear nice things. Ask why.

I must settle for freedom in this modern time

In the distant past, Muslim doctors advised nervous people to look up at the sky. Forget the tight earth. Imagine that the sky, all of it, belonged to them alone. Crescent, low moon, more stars than the eyes looking up at them. But the sky was free, without any price, no one I knew spoke of it, no one competed for it. Instead, one by one those who could afford it began to sleep indoors in cool air-conditioned rooms, away from the mosquitoes and the flies...

Loneliness is Europe's malaria, Rae said. No one can really be immune.

Perhaps we half and halfs should always make a choice, one nationality instead of the other, one language instead of the other. We should nourish one identity and starve the other so that it would atrophy and drop off. Then we could relax and become like everyone else, we could snuggle up to the majority and fit in.

And why is it that so many years later it is so easy to distinguish the bullies from their prey? Adult bodies surrounding the children of long ago. The years have changed nothing.

Money is like grass. It withers. [... ] but our deeds last forever.

I'm not middle-class; I do not have a degree. I am upper-class without money.

That's what religion teaches: that life is a temporary thing which is going to dissolve one day.

I must settle for freedom in this modern time

I started creative writing classes at Aberdeen Central Library, and the writer-in-residence there, Todd McEwen, encouraged me a great deal. He showed my stories to his editor, and I thought that was just what happened to everyone who took his classes!

I write fiction that reflects Islamic logic: fictional worlds where cause and effect are governed by Muslim rationale. However, my characters do not necessarily behave as 'good' Muslims; they are not ideals or role models.

I grew up in a very westernised environment and went to a private American school. But my personality was shy and quiet, and I wanted to wear the hijab but didn't have the courage, as I knew my friends would talk me out of it.

I wasn't trained to write non-fiction.

I'm concerned that Islam has not just been politicised but that it's becoming an identity. This is like turning religion into a football match; it's a distraction from the real thing.

The coverage of Islam in the media is becoming more sophisticated, and there is more access to knowledge.

When I was growing up, we spoke Egyptian, we ate Egyptian food, we had other Egyptian friends. It was my father's preference.

It was 1989, and the word 'Muslim' wasn't even really used in Britain at the time; you were either black or Asian.

My characters are not role-model Muslims, but they struggle to make choices using Muslim logic.

All through life there were distinctions - toilets for men, toilets for women; clothes for men, clothes for women - then, at the end, the graves are identical.

When you write about a Muslim woman, like I did with my previous novels - 'Minaret', for example, which is about a woman who starts to wear the hijab - it sets all the alarm bells ringing.

Fanatics can never draw out the good in people. They will go to war I predict. They will raise armies, invade, and pillage because it is only aggression that will keep their cause alive. Fighting an enemy is always easier than governing human complexity.

Doctora Zainab looks at her watch. I should leave. But Mai carries her book and sits next to me. She wants me to read it for her. I start to read 'This is the House that Jack Built' and I forget Doctora Zainab's presence there is only Mai's attention and Tamer looking at us. For as long as the book lasts, we are poised, no future, no past.-Minaret

Somewhere hidden away was the culmination of the serious shopping of the past weeks, trees, turkeys, families sitting on settees. Like in the pictures she has seen in magazines. Private people, she thought, made private by the cold.