Time is our most precious currency. So it's significant that we are being encouraged, wherever possible, to think of our attention not as expenditure but as consumption. This blurring of labor and entertainment forms the basis, for example, of the financial alchemy that conjures deca-billion-dollar valuations for social-networking companies.

Growing up in Pakistan in the 1980s, I lived in the shadow of a tyrannical state.

If it takes you seven years to write each novel, you need a patron. And I would rather have my corporate self as my patron than any arts council or bestower of grants.

What used to help us to cope with transience was stuff like, extended families all living in one place, or very strong religious beliefs, or a tribe that would outlive you. That stuff is getting weaker.

When the machine of a human being is turned on, it seems to produce a protagonist, just as a television produces an image.

Why the brevity? Because I'd rather people read my book twice than only half-way through

The animosity between India and Pakistan is deeply unfortunate and dangerous, and it's something I've long campaigned to reduce. But right now, when there's artillery being exchanged in Kashmir - which is not for from here, either - and there are 100-ish nuclear weapons on each side of the border, there's never really been a case like this where two nuclear armed countries are happily shelling each other.