I think my generation's inability to speak in absolute terms when it comes to politics is a very positive thing; it's made us more nuanced, made us more complex.

My parents were fairly laid-back, but there were certain things about which they were very strict. My brother and I were told never to turn away a person in need. And it didn't matter what we thought of their motives, whether they were truly in need or not.

My father, the political dissident Jaballa Matar, disappeared from his home in Cairo in March 1990.

I've always said - I've always said I'm not, by temperament, a romantic about revolutions or given to revolutions. I've always thought that they are not the ideal way to change.

I used to be a keen rider. Sometimes I could sense what a horse liked or preferred to do.

I've never been particularly interested in genre distinctions. They seem to me more useful to a librarian than to a writer.

I used to believe that it was not possible to lose someone I loved without sensing it somehow, without feeling something shift. But it's not true. People can die, sometimes the closest people to us, without us noticing a thing.

I lost my father when I was 19, so the majority of my life has been under this cloud, and I have been full of the intention to find out what happened.

When a dictatorship imprisons someone or makes them disappear, it's actually a very strategic move. We forget that. It's not as senseless as it seems. It's a way to silence someone, but also it's a way to silence their family as well, out of fear, and society by extension.

One of the dark truths about dictators - and it applies to Gaddafi - is that on some level, they love their people. But it is a strange love. It says, 'I love you for me; I don't love you for you.' That rhymes with a certain kind of Libyan father who was always certain about what was good for those around him. Those fathers lose in the end.

I've never thought of myself in terms of an identity. I'm always baffled when I encounter someone who gives the impression about being confident about a particular defined identity.

I am terribly interested in the paragraph: the paragraph as an object, the construction, and the possibilities of what a paragraph can do.

Nothing we read can import new or foreign feelings that we don't, in one form or another, already possess.

Books have shown me horror and beauty.

Whenever I was encouraged by my elders to pick up a book, I was often told, 'Read so as to know the world.' And it is true; books have invited me into different countries, states of mind, social conditions and historical epochs; they have offered me a place at the most unusual gatherings.

Switching languages is a form of conversion. And like all conversions, whether it's judged a failure or a success, it excites the desire to leave, go elsewhere, adopt a new language and start all over again. It also means that a conscious effort is demanded to remain still.

In Libya, I did well at school because I was clever. In Egyptian public school, I got the highest marks for the basest of reasons. And in the American school, I struggled. Everything - mathematics, the sciences, pottery, swimming - had to be conducted in a language I hardly knew and that was neither spoken in the streets nor at home.

I don't remember a time when words were not dangerous.

We have defeated Gaddafi on the battlefield; now we must defeat him in our imagination. We must not allow his legacy to corrupt our dream. Let's keep focused on the true prize: unity, democracy, and the rule of law. Let's not seek revenge; that would diminish our future.

Gaddafi tried to give a masterclass to men like the Syrian dictator, Bashar al-Assad, on how to crush a civilian uprising.

We got rid of Muammar Gaddafi. I never thought I would be able to write these words.

The cost of Colonel Gaddafi's rule on Libyan society is incalculable.

Over the centuries, close-knit tribes have played an important part in the cohesion of Libyan society.

As part of the ritual of becoming a man, my maternal uncle, a judge, and his four sons, each older than me, took me deer hunting.