Mohsin Hamid Quotes

For our purposes as human beings, the mind is the center of everything.

For me, consciousness is the most interesting unsolved problem of science, and, in fact, we may never know what it is about a particular arrangement of neurons that gives rise to consciousness. Our consciousness, like the air we breathe or like the passage of time, is central to our existence as intelligent beings.

I have to remind myself constantly to not be antisocial, because I stay to myself a lot. I'm a lot more introspective than my characters.

The character I created, 'Commissario Brunetti,' who appears in all my books, shares similar reading, artistic and musical tastes with me. Subconsciously, I knew that if I was to spend however long it would take to write this book with him, this man would have to be someone I'd like to have dinner with.

The mind, whatever else it is, is a constant of everyone's experience, and, in more ways than we know, the creator of the reality that we live within... Nothing is more essential to us.

Every time I am looking into the depths of somebody's brain, I'm thinking, 'This is what makes a person who they are. That structure contains memories. Everything that they've ever experienced is right in there.'

All I know is that when I go somewhere, I'm not an autobot. I am a human being. I am not an actor.

I can explain my body and my brain, but there's something more. I can't explain my own existence - what makes me a unique human being.

Novels for me are how I find out what's going on in my own head. And so that's a really useful and indeed critical thing to do when you do as many of these other things as I do.

Consciousness, for me, is a manifestation of complexity in biology. It's an emergent property.

In some ways, you kind of take a personality and drop it on the ground, and it breaks into a bunch of little pieces, and you kind of water those pieces, and it grows into characters. So they're all me in a way.

Looking up and out, how can we not respect this ever-vigilant cognizance that distinguishes us: the capability to envision, to dream, and to invent? the ability to ponder ourselves? and be aware of our existence on the outer arm of a spiral galaxy in an immeasurable ocean of stars? Cognizance is our crest.

Usually when you're doing concepts for a character, you just try a couple different things to see what sticks.

What I do when I create a character is put in details from all the people I know who might be like that person, and then put in a huge amount of myself.

A lot of times characters are combinations of people I come across in life. I people-watch a lot.

I notice that my characters go out to dinner and have fun and take these great trips, but I spend so much time on their lives, I don't have much of a personal life of my own. I have to sort of remember to fill out that little notebook on me.

A human being is not a machine. Especially when it comes to creating.

The last few years I've had to force myself to go out and be more involved the world because I can get a bit more cerebral and escape into characters and the world of characters. But now I guess I escape into stories about 'Wilfred.'

Our nature is the mind. And the mind is our nature.

When you read a book, the neurons in your brain fire overtime, deciding what the characters are wearing, how they're standing, and what it feels like the first time they kiss. No one shows you. The words make suggestions. Your brain paints the pictures.

Actors may not realize the extent of their own power. Acting is creation. It's them bringing their own stuff, letting it marinate in their soul, in their creative engine.

A part of my job, when I'm playing a character and approaching a role, is to rationalize and to not judge whatsoever.

I try to look at every role the same way, regardless of whether the character is real or the character is a fantasy. I always start from myself, because you have to know yourself first.

Acting is an imaginative exercise. It would be odd if you didn't try to identify with the roles you play, but I think I can differentiate between where my imagination is leading me and where I actually am.

The first long chapter of my career was almost entirely theater so that, by the time I was 30, 35, I sort of knew who I was as an actor, and I was gradually learning who I was as a human being.