Quotes from Kamila Shamsie

an Indian, introducing the English to the history of India, which was his history and not theirs. It was a surprising thought, and something in it made him uneasy. He had thought the world would change around him but his own life would stay unaffected. 'India

My history is your picnic ground,

Why grateful? Because sometimes you know you're standing on a cusp, and you know that in knowing it you've gone past the cusp over to the other side, or at least almost entirely so, entirely except for one toe that still hangs on to childhood; one toe or one finger or one shoulder blade curving back to meet another shoulder blade which curves forward to meet yours in a reminder that, if you had wings, this, right here, is where they would sprout

Why have the English remained so English?

But when the English leave, they'll be going home.

Things mutate, thoughts and emotions, they mutate inside you in ways you aren't even aware of.

The least amount of courtesy you should extend to someone is acknowledgement that they exist.

In that part of my mind that only remembers life before fourteen, Raheen, I'll love you forever.

It hits you in unexpected moments, this city's romance; everywhere, air pockets of loveliness just when your lungs can't take any more congestion or pollution or stifling newspaper headlines.

History is never obliging enough to replay itself in all details.

Benazir was Prime Minister; she had taken the oath of office in a bright green shalwar with white dupatta, the colours of the Pakistan flag, and made the men around her look like pygmies.

thought firing Abu Bakr would have taught you a lesson about lying, conniving and implicating other people in your crimes,' he said. 'I'm amazed Zahra's parents haven't banished you from her life.

They opt in to being tagged by their friends. That's a different thing to the police watching you at all times because you're a climate activist or a guy who goes to a mosque.

This is how you know you aren't young any more: you start to care more about thread count than immediate gratification.

Their conversations were almost all domestic now – about Zola, mostly; but also grocery shopping, home improvements, summer holiday plans, whether it was time to invite some or other combination of their families over for lunch.

seeped into his bones from decades of sitting outdoors in