You're never rude,' she said, smiling, 'and I think it's good to be touchy sometimes. It means you care.

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.

If your book is set in the plantation days of the slave-owning South and you write a little romance between two slave owners without acknowledging the system they live, that's a political gesture.

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

My dad had this outlook: It doesn't matter what I want to read - reading was a good thing. So whatever I was curious about they'd get for me from the library. Books were a kind of a resistance to reality. I liked to imagine worlds that were different. I still do.

Pakistan hasn't been cast in the role of... interesting cultural place or, you know, land of great comedians.

Farmers and people who make a living from the land are finding it impossible to survive. So the first step is to get out of that place. Come to the city where there are opportunities.