I do not envy people who think they have a complete explanation of the world, for the simple reason that they are obviously wrong.

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.

To understand just one life you have to swallow the world ... do you wonder, then, that I was a heavy child?

The acceptance that all that is solid has melted into the air, that reality and morality are not givens but imperfect human constructs, is the point from which fiction begins.

Out-of-step intellectuals like Noam Chomsky and the deceased Edward Said have often been dismissed as crazy extremists, 'anti-American,' and in Mr. Said's case even, absurdly, as apologists for Palestinian 'terrorism.'

Something was badly amiss with the spiritual life of the planet...Too many demons inside people claiming to believe in God.

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.