I always try to create conflict and drama in my books; it's the engine of the novel.

- Monica Ali

The thing about getting older is that you don't need everything to be possible any more, you just need things to be certain.

- Monica Ali

If the culture is so all pervasive that you can’t think outside of it, how are you making genuine choices?

- Monica Ali

I started writing 'Brick Lane' when my children were two years and five months old. We were on holiday in the north of England when I was overtaken b…

- Monica Ali

Kids are naturally inventive and curious and creative, but most adults have had that beaten out of them. Writing is a form of play; you have to get r…

- Monica Ali

I wish I got a lie-in on Saturday mornings but I never do.

- Monica Ali

A new car is not going to change your life.

- Monica Ali

I guess there's a sort of cycle with writing books. There's all the researching and then the imagining and writing - which is the real job - and then…

- Monica Ali

I don't want to get hung up on what 'people,' that nebulous mass, think about me. That's the way to unhappiness, I think.

- Monica Ali