Despite all the boosterish talk of globalization breaking down barriers, most writers in Anglo-America are still working within the nationalist assumptions of their traditionally powerful societies.

I am a secularist in the Gandhian sense of the word, not the Nehruvian one. Nehru thought religion was an antique superstition which stood in the way of rational modern politics. I side with Gandhi, who wanted religious figures out of politics but also was suspicious of purely rational politics.

I guess I am nostalgic for a time - the nineteenth century and early twentieth - when writers were, to use Stefan Collini's phrase, "public moralists" and politicians, plutocrats, bankers, arms dealers, and experts and technocrats were not solely defining the moral norms as well as the political lives of our societies. We do have some writers claiming to be public moralists, but, as I said, they have actually been more jingoistic than even the henchmen of Bush and Blair.

Freedom of speech doesn't guarantee great literature.

I wrote for many years without showing my writing to anyone, because I was constantly comparing it to what I was reading. You have to compare yourself to the best and feel totally inadequate.

I found it really disturbing to see a novelist writing a diatribe about Islam and Muslim radical extremists, blurring the distinction between the two.

The internet has spawned people for whom knowingness is more important than knowledge. It equips you with the illusion of offering knowledge instantly - and quite easily - so you can read a few articles on a few subjects and feel well informed but not actually know any of those subjects in any depth.