The monsoon is such a dominant part of Indian life that it is hard to overstate its importance. One's life completely changes based on the rain. After the monsoon, because the dust settles, one can see further and so it feels like one's eyesight has improved or that one is living in a different country where there is more light.

It's easy when you grow up in fear to act out of fear. I don't want to embrace that fear; I prefer to be kind.

I need to tell the things that are important but which don't make sense in terms of the narrative, things that would destroy symmetry or narrative pace. This is my personal belief about what it means to write nonfiction.

Novels should be judged rigorously. Either a book works or it doesn't. The fact that something is true in the real world should not lend authority to it in fiction.

I can't have composite characters. I can't attribute dialogue to someone based simply on my memory and not based on notes taken at the time that the words were spoken.

When someone gets a success, and we, too, have done good work and sometimes even better work than the person who has just triumphed, we wonder: Why did success pass me by?

Exposition suggests a great trust in the reader, and this expression of trust makes a book feel tender.