“Innocence is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm.”

Hate is an automatic response to fear, for fear humiliates.

He entered the territory of lies without a passport for return.

Pity is cruel. Pity destroys.

Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation.

In a mad world it always seems simpler to obey.

It was as though our love were a small creature caught in a trap and bleeding to death: I had to shut my eyes and wring its neck.

God save us always,’ I said ‘from the innocent and the good.

The hands of the guilty don’t necessarily tremble; only in stories does a dropped glass betray agitation. Tension is more often shown in the studied action.

We can love with our minds, but can we love only with our minds? Love extends itself all the time, so that we can love even with our senseless nails: we love even with our clothes, so that a sleeve can feel a sleeve.

You needn’t be so scared. Love doesn’t end. Just because we don’t see each other.

It’s a good world if you don’t weaken.

As long as one suffers one lives.

There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.

All good novelists have bad memories.

When we are not sure, we are alive.

Politics, war, marriage, crime, adultery. Everything that exists in the world has something to do with money.

One of the surprising privileges of intellectuals is that they are free to be scandalously asinine without harming their reputations.

Beautiful leaving (hajr), is to leave without harming, beautiful pardoning is to pardon without rebuking, and beautiful patience is to be patient without complaining.

Sins cause harm and repentance removes the cause.

There’s nothing that does so much harm as good intentions.

There are severe limits to the good that the government can do for the economy, but there are almost no limits to the harm it can do.

It’s always been hard for me to walk away from people I love when I’ve grown to become reliant on even some of their most harmful traits.

The power to do good is also the power to do harm.

Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.