A farmer is dependent on too many things outside his control; it makes for modesty.

[On her writing agenda:] Make the familiar exotic; the exotic familiar.

I am a naturalized U.S. citizen, which means that, unlike native-born citizens, I had to prove to the U.S. government that I merited citizenship.

Through my fiction, I make mainstream readers see the new Americans as complex human beings, not as just The Other.

I'm very moved by chaos theory, and that sense of energy. That quantum physics. We don't really, in Hindu tradition, have a father figure of a God. It's about cosmic energy, a little spark of which is inside every individual as the soul.

Mother Teresas detractors have accused her of overemphasizing Calcuttans destitution and of coercing conversion from the defenseless. In the context of lost causes, Mother Teresa took on battles she knew she could win. Taken together, it seems to me, the criticisms of her work do not undermine or topple her overall achievement.

What was the function of poetry if not to improve the petty, cautious minds of evasive children?