Top 30 Sabaa Tahir Quotes

Ani DiFranco – I love her.

I grew up in an isolated town, out in the middle of the Mojave Desert in the middle of a naval base. My family was one of the only South Asian families in this town. We felt it. We knew.

Evil comes in many forms, and whether you are male or female, that doesn’t matter as much as what lurks in your mind.

When I was growing up, I didn’t feel strong. I felt weak. I felt like a scared little kid. So I naturally turned to books to deal with that feeling, and I really turned to fantasy. That’s really what influenced my decision to write a fantasy novel.

In fantasy and science fiction, world-building is an essential part of the story. But as a reader, I don’t just want descriptions of food, clothing, and places. I want to understand the world to its core, through the eyes of those who live in it.

Even as a little kid, I told lots of stories, and I wrote them down, and I loved reading fiction and fantasy.

I was an outsider. I looked different, and I felt really voiceless as a kid.

What is a nightstand without Mindy Kaling? I dip into her ‘Why Not Me?’ when I’ve had a particularly rough day. Her hilarious observations and anecdotes never fail to cheer me up.

You pour your soul into your book, but you never know how it will be received, and when people like your baby, it’s a great feeling.

How far do you go in following orders? So many people use it as an excuse, right? ‘I was following orders.’ But what does that mean?

I don’t go on social media with a mercenary intent to promote. That’s just wrong. I go to learn, to listen, to have fun, to find people who love what I love and who introduce me to new things. That’s where the joy is: in the interactions.

I grew up in a small town in the Mojave Desert where conservative Republicans were as common as cacti. Inexplicably, I grew up liberal and a feminist.

I grew up raiding my brother’s comic book stash. I tried to lose myself in fiction.

I love my characters like family and cannot wait to share more of their story with readers.

‘The Sword of Shannara’ is about two brothers who find themselves on an epic quest to save humanity. It borrows from ‘Lord of the Rings’ but is still original in its own right. I read it in three days, then reread it, then went out and found every single book Terry Brooks ever wrote, and read all those.

Honesty and truth in writing is so important, and I think that YA writing above all is honest, and I think that appeals to anyone of any age.

Multiple characters’ opinions on societal roles, as well as their perceptions of themselves and others, help me lose myself in whatever strange and wonderful setting I’m reading about.

You walk into BookCon, and everybody is so excited… it’s just paradise.

Great novels have great characterization no matter what. But multiple points of view let me examine characters from entirely different perspectives, allowing me to learn more about everyone in the process.

I grew up feeling voiceless and powerless as a kid. I turned to books – fantasy books in particular – to give me comfort. As I grew up, I realized I could find that sense of power and voice if I simply started writing.

My readers and I, we have the same taste, and it’s awesome. They’ll tell me about stuff that I haven’t heard of.

When I asked myself what I’d want to see in a comic about a Pakistani superhero, the first word that came to mind was ‘relatable.’

I find booksellers comforting – they’re my people.

If I’m really excited about a scene, I used to wait to write it, and now I’ll just write it. When you do that, all sorts of awesome things can happen from just giving in and writing that scene you’re excited about.

When I went to college, it was so easy. And I worked two jobs while I was in school all the way through; I put myself through school. But working and studying was easy for me because I had worked so hard in high school, studying all the time. Taking only three classes and then working was an easy life in comparison.

People could be really horrible, you know? They would threaten my parents.

‘Daughter of Smoke and Bone’ is one of my all-time top YA fantasy trilogies, so I was a little nervous about reading ‘Strange the Dreamer.’ Of course, I shouldn’t have been worried because Laini Taylor immediately grabbed me by the proverbial lapels and refused to let me go.

I actually like love triangles in books. That’s one of the main reasons why I wrote one. I really love love triangles.

I was 5 when I got the speech about how I would have to work harder and longer than everyone else because I was brown.

I wanted to write something that reflected the violence and horror of the world, but I also wanted to reflect the way people fight to survive, even when society wants to crush them.