So much of democracy is built on antagonism. It institutionalizes a certain kind of antagonism. This is not to say that we shouldn't have any democracy, but the fact is that democracy has hardened political identities and made them more violent.

The act of writing should not be accompanied by the sense of an audience, someone peering over your shoulder, but in nonfiction I think it’s almost imperative that you identify an audience so you can confirm or challenge or undermine whatever ideas or prejudices they might have about your subject.

Freedom of speech doesn't guarantee great literature.

The asymmetries of power that have shaped relations between the West and the rest of the world also exist in the realm of literary criticism.

Most books germinate within you for a long time before they are ready to come out. I wrote several drafts of the novel over many years and when I finally got to the last one, it didn't take much time.

Most suffering is human-made and avoidable. It's mostly in your head.

Dickens didn't have access to any other epistemologies other than those prevailing in Britain. But a novelist today cannot plausibly claim ignorance of his society's manifold connections with the wider world, the fact that prosperity and security at home, for instance, often depend on extensive violence and exploitation abroad.