The book of your revolution sits in the pit of your belly, young Indian. Crap it out, and read. Instead of which, they're all sitting in front of color TVs and watching cricket and shampoo advertisements.

I put my hand out and wiped the vomit from his lips, and cooed soothing words to him. It squeezed my heart to see him suffer like this - but where my genuine concern for him ended and where my self-interest began, I could not tell: no servant can ever tell what the motives of his heart are. "Do we loathe our masters behind a facade of love - or do we love them behind a facade of loathing? "We are made mysteries to ourselves by the Rooster Coop we are locked in.

Any good society survives on a circulation of favours.

Greenwich Village always had its share of mind readers, but there are many more these days, and they seem to have moved closer to the mainstream of life in the city. What was crazy 10 years ago is now respectable, even among the best-educated New Yorkers.

Strange thoughts brew in your heart when you spend too much time with old books

In my family, as in most middle-class Indian families I knew when I was growing up, science and mathematics were held in awe.

In a sense, being a full-time writer is less fun because there's no office to go to anymore, there's no set routine, there's no schedule. It can be quite isolating.