The traveler feels at home everywhere, because she is never at home anywhere.

My life has gotten a little more complicated than my ability to describe it. That used to be the definition of madness, now it's just continuous overload.

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.

[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.

I am aware of myself as a four-hundred-year-old woman, born in the captivity of a colonial, pre-industrial oral culture and living now as a contemporary New Yorker.

In India, there are real consequences to inattention; drivers who jeopardize pedestrians can be lynched on the spot.