We can open up our computers and Skype with someone, and we see them. It's like looking through a window. And we can surf the internet through our phones, and it's like our consciousness is far away. Or we can step through a airplane door and be in another continent a few hours away. So technology feels, to me, like the doors sort of already exist, at least emotionally.

Certainly, historically, there has been more attention given in the international media to Indian English-language writers than to Pakistani English-language writers. But that, in my opinion, was justified by the sheer number of excellent writers coming from India and the Indian diaspora.

All human stories are migration stories because everyone is a refugee from their own childhood.

When terrorism strikes, divisive anger is a natural response.

We need a self because the complexity of the chemical processes that make up our individual humanities exceeds the processing power of our brains.

Writing a novel is like an amusement park or a museum or a city. You go into that place and you have certain experiences and those experiences, hopefully, have some impact on you.

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