The last to learn of gossip are the parties concerned

I haven't any close friends. Friendship needs time to interact, sit down, gossip. I don't have that time.

That's Delhi. When life gets too much for you all you need to do is to spend an hour at Nigambodh Ghat,watch the dead being put to flames and hear their kin wail for them. Then come home and down a couple of pegs of whisky. In Delhi, death and drink make life worth living.

I've had very little sex. I like my Scotch, but I've never been drunk.

When the world is itself draped in the mantle of night, the mirror of the mind is like the sky in which thoughts twinkle like stars.

I have never, in 50 years, ever missed a deadline [as a journalist].

I acquired long-lived parents. My mother died at 94. Father died at 90, holding a glass of whisky. I think that's the secret of longevity - to have long-lived parents. The rest is discipline.