I don't know what it's like to be Jewish, but I suspect there is some aspect of that: being Jewish is the thing that bonds you as opposed to being Je…

- Ayad Akhtar

I think of myself as a narrative artist. I don't think of myself as a novelist or screenwriter or playwright. All of those modalities of processing a…

- Ayad Akhtar

The secret of a happy life is respect. Respect for yourself and respect for others.

- Ayad Akhtar

I see the American experience as being defined by the immigrant paradigm of rupture and renewal: rupture with the old world, the old ways, and renewa…

- Ayad Akhtar

Sooner or later we've all got to confront the reality that we have got to come to understand who we are and what we're doing, and the extent to which…

- Ayad Akhtar

I think there is a lot of continuity between the Jewish and the Islamic traditions. We know this historically, though people don't want to talk about…

- Ayad Akhtar

Here's the problem: we are living in a time when the act of reading is changing. The nature of a reader's attention is changing. The capacity for dee…

- Ayad Akhtar

I feel like one of the things that is central to American life is the religious experience, and I think that the experience of being Muslim in Americ…

- Ayad Akhtar

I don't have an ideal reader. I'm trying to reach something simple and, I believe, universal, in every single person.

- Ayad Akhtar