“Words, words, words, a million million words circle in my head like hawks, waiting to dive onto the page to rend and tear the only two words I want to write.

Why me?”

“Even as the words came out of my mouth, my heart was dying a million deaths.”

“My doubts stand in a circle around every word, I see them before I see the word, but what then! I do not see the word at all, I invent it.”

“If I waited for perfection, I would never write a word.”

“Books are like friends to me. Words come alive on the page.”

“My words are the words of my father, and the words of my father are the words of my grandfather, and the words of my grandfather are the words of my great-grandfathers - Hasan and Husayn; and their words are the words of Ali, and the words of Ali are the words of the Prophet of Allah; and the words of the Prophet are the words of Allah.”

“I am a dreamer of words, of written words. I think I am reading; a word stops me. I leave the page. The syllables of the word begin to move around. Stressed accents begin to invert. The word abandons its meaning like an overload which is too heavy and prevents dreaming. Then words take on other meanings as if they had the right to be young. And the words wander away, looking in the nooks and crannies of vocabulary for new company, bad company.”

“The language of ideas creates a different universe: a universe which has multiplied the monkey's vocabulary of forty words to the million words in the English dictionary.”

“A word in the head is worth two in the book.”

“It's an illusion I've noticed before-- words on a page are like oxygen to a petrol engine, firing up ghosts. It only lasts while the words are in your head. After you put down the paper or pen, the pistons fall lifeless again.”