I think it is immensely difficult to get the U.S. interested in non-U.S. topics. I dont think this is because the average American reader is disinterested, but more because of publishers playing it safe: if a thriller based in L.A. is a sure winner, why spend money plugging one based in Paris - or Bangkok?

Shun security, I advise aspiring novelists when they complain to me that they are stuck. Get disoriented. Maybe your agonizing writing block isnt agonizing enough. Your enemy is comfort.

The function of the West is to turn bodies and minds into products. It cannot understand that the rest of the world holds this to be an obscenity, a corruption of our nirvanic nature.

The great weakness of the West is that it has nothing with which to inspire loyalty except wealth. But what is wealth? Another washing machine, a bigger car, a nicer house to live in? Not much to feed the spirit in all that.

There are plenty of brilliant people who are too stressed out to read challenging literary novels.

The world other than as advertised can be an amazing place.

I am moonlighting for the Buddha.