Hisham Matar

“The laws of the lowly gangster govern Qaddafi and his sons.”

“The cost of Colonel Gaddafi's rule on Libyan society is incalculable.”

“My parents were fairly laid-back, but there were certain things about which they were very strict. My brother and I were told never to turn away a person in need. And it didn't matter what we thought of their motives, whether they were truly in need or not.”

“And I remember this man who never ran out of poems telling me once that knowing a book by heart is like carrying a house inside your chest.”

“My earliest memory of books is not of reading but of being read to. I spent hours listening, watching the face of the person reading aloud to me.”

“Over the centuries, close-knit tribes have played an important part in the cohesion of Libyan society.”

“The space where writing happens is a unique space that's hard to define, and when you're kicked out of it because you're travelling or distracted, it seems so elusive and hard to defend because you yourself doubt whether it existed.”

“Audacity, hope, courage - the Libyans have these in abundance. But all those boring little things - like organization, building a committee - is hard; making decisions and moving ahead is hard.”

“I sometimes wonder if I would have become a writer if what happened to my father hadn't happened.”

“The Qaddafis, father and sons, speak the grammar of dictatorship: threats and bribery.”

“My work is my shelter, particularly in these moments when things are happening fast.”

“When I'm writing, my mood is very good - and I love life.”

“In Libya, I did well at school because I was clever. In Egyptian public school, I got the highest marks for the basest of reasons. And in the American school, I struggled. Everything - mathematics, the sciences, pottery, swimming - had to be conducted in a language I hardly knew and that was neither spoken in the streets nor at home.”

“In the same way that Egypt and Libya conspired to 'disappear' my father and silence writers such as Idris Ali, they made me, too, to a far lesser extent, feel punished for speaking out.”

“We got rid of Muammar Gaddafi. I never thought I would be able to write these words.”

“Turgenev's achievement lies in how he succeeded, in spite of himself, his country, and his time, in exempting his work from public duty. This has given it that unnameable quality that makes every sentence true, every silence trustworthy.”

“It is evident that Qaddafi is mentally unwell. Like Richard III, he has barricaded himself within lies.”

“One of the dark truths about dictators - and it applies to Gaddafi - is that on some level, they love their people. But it is a strange love. It says, 'I love you for me; I don't love you for you.' That rhymes with a certain kind of Libyan father who was always certain about what was good for those around him. Those fathers lose in the end.”

“I don't remember a time when words were not dangerous.”

“Books have shown me horror and beauty.”