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

Most writers who leave their country physically have already left it mentally and emotionally.

Can't the United States see that when we allow someone to be tortured by our agents, it is not only the victim and the perpetrator who are corrupted, not only the "intelligence" that is contaminated, but also everyone who looked away and said they did not know, everyone who consented tacitly to that outrage so they could sleep a little safer at night, all the citizens who did not march in the streets by the millions to demand the resignation of whoever suggested, even whispered, that torture is inevitable in our day and age, that we must embrace its darkness?

We can live with lots of things, but we can't live without imagination, we can't live without hope.

I think to be in exile is a curse, and you need to turn it into a blessing. Youve been thrown into exile to die, really, to silence you so that your voice cannot come home. And so my whole life has been dedicated to saying, I will not be silenced.

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.

Beware of turning into the enemy you most fear. All it takes is to lash out violently at someone who has done you some grievous harm, proclaiming that only your pain matters in this world. More than against that person's body, you will then, at that moment, be committing a crime against your own imagination.