I am not a serious person. I don't claim any profundity for any of my writing.

I discovered that a diplomat's life is largely entertaining and meeting people. At the end of the day there's nothing. So I gave up.

Friends meddle with my plan of work. I resent people dropping in for a chat.

I had lots of time to read [being a lawyer] what I hadn't read in my school and college days. Being a bad student I barely passed my exams and I barely bothered about books. It was sports all the time. I started reading and got involved in literature and writing. The few cases I handled gave me the material for my early short stories.

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

I turned to the Partition experiences, which were churning in my mind. Then came my first novel Train to Pakistan.

But big people’s illnesses are always made to sound big. The simple shutting and opening of the royal arse-hole was made to sound as if the world was coming to an end.