28
" Indeed, all books, each and every book ever written, could be said to be said to be offered to the reader as a form of self-help. Textbooks, those whores, as particularly explicit in acknowledging this, and it is with a textbook that you, at this moment, after several years in the city, are walking down the street. "
― Mohsin Hamid , How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia
30
" She is here. And she comes to you, and she does not speak, and the others do not notice her, and she takes your hand, and you ready yourself to die, eyes open, aware that this is all an illusion, a last aroma cast up by the chemical stew that is your brain, which will soon cease to function, and there will be nothing, and you are ready, ready to die well, ready to die like a man, like a woman, like a human, for despite all else you have loved, you have loved your father and your mother and your brother and your sister and your son, and yes, your ex-wife, and you have loved the pretty girl, you have loved beyond yourself, and so you have courage, and you have dignity, and you have calmness in the face of terror, and awe, and the pretty girl holds your hand, and you contain her, and this book, and me writing it, and I too contain you, who may not yet even be born, you inside me inside you, though not in a creepy way, and so may you, may I, may we, so may all of us confront the end. "
― Mohsin Hamid , How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia
34
" When you watch a TV show or a movie, what you see looks like what it physically represents. A man looks like a man, a man with a large bicep looks like a man with a large bicep, and a man with a large bicep bearing the tattoo "Mama" looks like a man with a large bicep bearing the tattoo "Mama."
But when you read a book, what you see are black squiggles on pulped wood or, increasingly, dark pixels on a pale screen. To transform these icons into characters and events, you must imagine. And when you imagine, you create. It's in being read that a book becomes a book, and in each of a million different readings a book become one of a million different books, just as an egg becomes one of potentially a million different people when it's approached by a hard-swimming and frisky school of sperm. "
― Mohsin Hamid , How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia
37
" ... and you are ready, ready to die well, ready to die like a man, like a woman, like a human, for despite all else you have loved, you have loved your father and your mother and your brother and your sister and your son and, yes, your ex-wife and you have loved the pretty girl, you have been beyond yourself, and so you have courage, and you have ... "
― Mohsin Hamid , How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia