“I actually dislike, more than many people, working through literary allusion. I just feel that there's something a bit snobbish or elitist about that. I don't like it as a reader, when I'm reading something. It's not just the elitism of it; it jolts me out of the mode in which I'm reading. I've immersed myself in the world and then when the light goes on I'm supposed to be making some kind of literary comparison to another text. I find I'm pulled out of my kind of fictional world, I'm asked to use my brain in a different kind of way. I don't like that.” PeopleWorldKindDifferentReadingBrainComparisonDislikeDifferent KindsElitistElitismAllusion Author:Kazuo Ishiguro
“I think whatever we've done as a band at The Clientele, we've done because it's so natural. Our "old" sound isn't really like any actual bands from old times. We take elements of past music styles and past sounds as a way to... this is going to sound very pretentious and perhaps overly thought-out, but as a way to strike chords of vague nostalgia, and strike chords of, "I've heard this before somewhere." That's what a lot of our music is about in terms of the words and ideas behind it, so we really use old sounds as a way to serve that agenda.” ThinkingDonePastTermNaturalStyleMusic IsNostalgiaPretentiousOld Time Author:Alasdair MacLean
“Typically in my novels the narrator tells a story by remembering, and the memories are colored by this and colored by that. So the whole universe of the novel tends to be framed by the narrator's memories and thoughts.” RememberUniverseMemoriesNovelFramed Author:Kazuo Ishiguro
“There questions of wanting to be an artist, and what does that mean, what makes you an artist? Are you an artist if you're in a gallery in New York and not an artist if you're doing it at home? Do you need legitimation to count? If you've been acculturated to believe that you have certain obligations - familial, social, human - if multitasking has been your forte and that's what's been praised and rewarded, where do you find the single-mindedness, the selfishness to do something like art? I think those are questions that arise differently for women and for men.” ThinkingMenBelieveMeanArtHomeArtistObligationSelfishness Author:Claire Messud
“I work in the human rights field and there are serious conflicts between certain interpretations of Islamic law and human rights. That's something which I don't make any bones about at all, it's something which I think is very important for everyone to address, including the Muslim community, and many Muslims are addressing that issue.” ThinkingImportantCommunitySeriousConflictHuman RightsBonesIslamic Author:Sadakat Kadri
“Over the years, we have witnessed massive changes and degradation to Egypt's natural heritage. It's shocking how one generation's decisions about natural resources is affecting the present and all future generations of Egyptians.” NaturalDecisionFuture GenerationNatural Resources Author:Mindy Baha El Din
“I spoke to my father - my father's from Pakistan and he's also a lawyer - I said to him, "Well what does the Shari'a say?" And he said, "Well, of course it doesn't justify suicide bombs," but he didn't seem to know where the Shari'a came from or what it was all about. The more I asked people in my family as well as friends, the more I realized that there seemed to be widespread ignorance in the Muslim community. And that's something which I actually found to be the case over the next two and a half, three years I spent writing the book.” PeopleWritingBookFatherCommunityIgnoranceMy FamilySuicideLawyerI RealizedJustify Author:Sadakat Kadri
“Egypt's priorities in fact are all related to the environment: food, water, health, energy, employment and education. Egypt is facing some very serious environmental challenges. The country has limited natural resources and has to decide how to manage these to meet the needs of a growing population.” CountryEnergyWaterNaturalChallengesEnvironmentSeriousEnvironmentalPrioritiesManageNatural Resources Author:Mindy Baha El Din
“I realized that the ignorance was profound. I don't mean that in a pejorative sense, it's just that people didn't know what the Shari'a was, as such. They knew that it was something good. I should say perhaps that the Shari'a, etymologically in Arabic, means a desert path to water. It means a path towards salvation, in the seventh-century context, to the desert people. If you have a path to water, that's the path you want to take to get you where you want to get to; where you should get to. And that much was clear but beyond that people didn't know what the rules were.” PeopleMeanWaterPathIgnoranceSalvationProfoundI Realized Author:Sadakat Kadri
“One of the big problems in this field is that there's so much mystification that surrounds talk of the Shari'a, whether its saying that Islam is all about peace or whether its people saying that Islam is all about Jihad and all about suicide bombs. People will make statements which don't seem to be backed up by any sort of historical context.” PeopleProblemSuicideHistoricalIslamSurroundJihad Author:Sadakat Kadri