Literature has become too psychological. We discount the physical, when in fact much of life is physical. People's personalities are partly formed by, or in response to, how they take up space; the physical mask has some relation, howsoever obscure, to the mental work happening underneath.

Literature has become too psychological. We discount the physical, when in fact much of life is physical. People's personalities are partly formed by, or in response to, how they take up space; the physical mask has some relation, howsoever obscure, to the mental work happening underneath.

It's very good for us to say, as liberals, that we should be moved by everything, but the fact is that there's just so much competing for our attention.

America going into this huge, costly, never-ending war created huge debt, which became a huge problem in Congress and led to it stalling many times, putting a halt to different kinds of social progress.

Despite my critical take on the city, I love Delhi, on the whole - love its monuments, love how easily graspable the city's turbulent history is. The negative things I write about are considered normal here.

I don't think sexual repression leads to violence, but I can see the situation where you're trying very hard to be very religious and to be good but pornography exerts a strong force on you, and one way to get further away from it would be to immerse yourself in a strong religious system.

I think Indians will pick up on a lot of the direct commentary on Delhi, which Americans will obviously miss, while Americans might get more out of watching pop-culture play out in unusual ways in a foreign country. Who knows?