Quotes from the Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid

"Moreover among the many rules that govern the bazaars of Lahore is this: if a woman is harassed by a man, she has the right to appeal to the brotherly instinct of the mob, and the mob is known to beat men who annoy their sisters."

"Indeed, in our poetry and folk songs intoxication occupies a recurring role as a facilitator of love and spiritual enlightment."

"Its remarkable, I must say, how being in Pakistan heightens one sensitivity to the sight of a woman's body. It's the effect of scarcity: one's rules of propriety makes one 'thirst' for the improper."

"Its like I'm an oyster. I've had this sharp speck inside me for a long time and, I've been trying to make it more comfortable. So slowly, I've turned it into a pearl."

"Lahore was the last major city in a contiguous swath of Muslim lands stretching as far west as Morocco and had therefore that quality of understated bravado characterstic of frontier towns."