I take six or seven years to write really small books. There is a kind of aesthetic of leanness, of brevity.
Mohsin HamidRead
Islamophobia, in all its guises, seeks to minimise the importance of the individual and maximise the importance of the group. Yet our instinctive stance ought to be one of suspicion towards such endeavours. For individuals are undeniably real. Groups, on the other hand, are assertions of opinion.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote critiques the reduction of individuals to mere representations of a group, emphasizing the value of individual experience over collective perception.
Mohsin Hamid's quote highlights the dangers of Islamophobia by pointing out how it undermines individual identities in favor of broad generalizations about groups. He argues that while group identities can often distort reality, individual experiences and perspectives are what truly matter and should be prioritized in societal discussions.
Themes
IslamophobiaIndividualGroupIdentitySociety
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech addressing community unity, one might use this quote to emphasize the importance of valuing individual stories in discussions about social issues.
More from Mohsin Hamid
All quotes →When the forces are aligning against hybridity, it harms everyone, as we are all migrants. Growing up in Pakistan, I know just how oppressive that kind of puritanical mindset can be.
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Some of my relatives held on to imagined memories the way homeless people hold onto lottery tickets. Nostalgia was their crack cocaine, if you will, and my childhood was littered with the consequences of their addiction : unserviceable debts, squabbles over inheritances, the odd alcoholic or suicide.
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Stories helped me unite parts of my existence that might otherwise have seemed irrevocably split by geography and time. And stories helped me find a future in which I, such a mongrel, could be comfortable.
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I think there's a growing courage among the younger generation of American writers. Because of the more superficial treatment of characters taking place in cinema, they have had to deal with that by digging deeper into who these people are.
Mohsin HamidRead
Part of the reason people abroad resent the United States is something Americans can do very little about: envy. The richest, most powerful country in the world attracts the jealousy of others in much the same way that the richest, most powerful man in a small town attracts the jealousy of others.
Mohsin HamidRead
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