Research can be a big clunker. It's difficult to know how you can make the historical light.

The rulers of the country generally believed that betting eliminates strikes. Men had to work in order to gamble.

I'm a Canadian citizen. But I always want to feel at home in Sri Lanka. I'm a member of both countries.

What began it all was the bright bone of a dream I could hardly hold onto.

We all have an old knot in the heart we wish to untie.

One of the things that happens in novels it's almost like a continual debate with yourself. That's why you're writing the book. It's why you create characters: so you can argue with yourself.

There are betrayals in war that are childlike compared with our human betrayals during peace. The new lovers enter the habits of the other. Things are smashed, revealed in a new light. This is done with nervous or tender sentences, although the heart is an organ of fire.