One of the cardinal principles of Buddhism, the principle of neglect.

I greatly enjoyed Tom Reiss's The Orientalist, for its mingled scholarship and sleuthing, and for so elegantly solving the puzzle of one of the Twentieth Century's most mysterious writers.

A travel book is a book that puts you in the shoes of the traveler, and it's usually a book about having a very bad time, having a miserable time, even better. You don't want to read a book about someone having a great time in the South of France, eating and drinking and falling in love. What you want to read is a book about a guy going through the jungle, going through the arctic snow, having a terrible time trying to cross the Sahara, and solving problems as they go.

When I went to Hong Kong, I knew at once I wanted to write a story set there.

I like the idea of isolation, I like the idea of solitude. You can be connected and have a phone and still be lonely.

The people of Hong Kong are criticized for only being interested in business, but it's the only thing they've been allowed to do.

The wish to travel seems to me characteristically human: the desire to move, to satisfy your curiosity or ease your fears, to change the circumstances of your life, to be a stranger, to make a friend, to experience an exotic landscape, to risk the unknown.