I come from an enormous and very close family. I have over a dozen aunts and uncles in Pakistan, dozens of cousins. I have many close friends. I have received so much love in Lahore that the city always pulls me.

The notion of love as a potentially destructive and potentially redemptive human force is something that comes across in all my books.

I believe one can gauge a book's impact only after about 10 years.

If differences can be hidden, perhaps they aren't differences at all.

We keep the negative stuff because it's the negative stuff that's going to, you know, potentially kill us. That fin in the water - maybe it is a shark. That yellow thing behind the tree - maybe it is a lion. You need to be scared.

One ought not to encourage beggars, and yes, you are right, it is far better to donate to charities that address the causes of poverty rather than to him, a creature who is merely its symptom.

I think that people are going to move. They always have and that's going to continue. The question is, how are we going to deal with it?