I earn – I’m not – I don’t want to claim I’m a scholar of great stature, but I have made a certain reputation for myself, I’ve published several books, I’ve never been able to get a permanent teaching job.
Job
The word ‘novel’ carries, for me, a weight as ominous, all-consuming and unforgiving as any Job encountered.
I feel it’s part of my job to make the problems of the poor compelling.
My father was the Prime Minister of Pakistan. My grandfather had been in politics, too; however, my own inclination was for a job other than politics. I wanted to be a diplomat, perhaps do some journalism – certainly not politics.
You can be deprived of your money, your job and your home by someone else, but remember that no one can ever take away your honor.
The thing about Memphis is that it’s pleasingly off-kilter. It’s a great big whack job of a city. The anti-Atlanta. You go there, and you can’t believe the things people will say, the way they think, the wobbling orbits of their lives. There’s an essential otherness.
When I teach and meet a class for the first time, you realize that there are people there that have exceptional abilities or have the potential to do exceptional things and you never know who those people are. My job is to provide the best information I can.
A job should employ God-given talents in a way that glorifies Him.
But you’d have a job to find many of my poems which would seem to be very influenced by a particular person.
It is really very important while you are young to live in an environment in which there is no fear. Most of us, as we grow older, become frightened; we are afraid of living, afraid of losing a job, afraid of tradition, afraid of what the neighbours, or what the wife or husband would say, afraid of death.