There's a tendency, especially among revolutionaries, to only show the good side of yourself and then when you come to power, the bad side comes out.

Those who have never suffered the iniquities of exile cannot possibly understand the significance, the gravitas, of a mattress.

We live in the age of the refugee, the age of the exile.

I feel as if I can take Indian stories, make them mine and take them to the world.

I don't believe in God, but I believe in angels.

Torture presupposes, it requires, it craves the abrogation of our capacity to imagine others suffering, dehumanizing them so much that their pain is not our pain. It demands this of the torturer, placing the victim outside and beyond any form of compassion or empathy, but also demands of everyone else the same distancing, the same numbness.

Responsibility without power, the fate of the secretary through the ages.