I was never a cardholder. But I was leftist in the sense that I voted communist.

No one has invented a condom for the pen yet. My pen is still sexy.

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

I use vulgar language in my writing. Or for people I don't like, but I have never had an outburst of anger and I think that's largely [Mahatma] Gandhi's influence. When you lose your temper, you've lost your cause.

Freedom is for the educated people who fought for it. We were slaves of the English, now we will be slaves of the educated Indians—or the Pakistanis.

[Sex] is of real interest to every human being and so why gloss over it, and it's fun, it's interesting, it has so many dimensions.

Nature provides that a man who slaves all day should spend the hours of the night in a palace full of houris whereas a king who wields the sceptre by day should have his sleep disturbed by nightmares of rebellion and assassination.