A mature society understands that at the heart of democracy is argument.

Doris Lessing really doesn't care what the critics say. In fact, she orders her publishers not to send her the reviews and gets cross with them if they do because she doesn't want that in her head. She's going where she's going, and that's where she wants to go.

In a novel, if you're any good, you don't just have good people or bad people. You have complicated people. You have real people.

The West should be tougher on Pakistan. It is trying to play both ends against the middle - to look like the friend of the revolutionaries on the one hand and a friend of the West in the fight against terrorism. It can't be both things.

If my child had prejudice in his head, I'd be ashamed. I would see it as my failure as a parent.

It's always been colossally important to me that my books should be well received in India. It's where I come from.

Censorship is the thing that stops you doing what you want to do, and what writers want to talk about is what they do, not what stops them doing it.