Your principle should be to see everything and say nothing. The world changes so rapidly that if you want to get on you cannot afford to align yourself with any person or point of view.

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.

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

I am alone, but never lonely. You have always books around you.

I was unhappy with the jobs I did after law. I got into the diplomatic service. There again I had really little to do.