I was spending a lot of time in Mumbai after I met my husband, who is Indian, and while parts of the city were prospering like crazy, I couldn't quite make out how the new wealth had changed the prospects of the majority of city residents who lived in slums. So after a few years I stopped wondering and started reporting.

...much of what was said did not matter, and that much of what mattered could not be said.

I'm useless when I meet writers I love - I go slack-jawed and stupid with awe.

There's some way in which we would prefer not to see very clearly the immense gifts and intelligence of some of the people who live in our most abject conditions. Maybe there are some things at work in deciding who gets to be society's winners and who gets to be society's losers that don't have to do with merit.

I think it's this congenital problem with journalism that we oversell the difference we make. We make small differences.

What you don't want is always going to be with you What you want is never going to be with you Where you don't want to go, you have to go And the moment you think you're going to live more, you're going to die

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Never trust anyone who tells you how people come to trust them.