Bin Laden was born filthy rich and died in a rich man's house, which he had painstakingly built to the highest specifications.

No, I don't think it's fair to label Islam 'violent.' But I will say that to my knowledge, no writer has ever gone into hiding for criticizing the Amish.

I'm not a big fan of there being voiceovers in movies. I really prefer it when the film tells it story.

I've never yet managed to write a novel which didn't have an Indian central character.

People don't like being around despair. Our tolerance for the truly hopeless, for those who are irredeemably broken by life is strictly limited. The sob stories we like are the ones that end before we're bored.

One of the things I do take some pride in is that if you had never read an article about my life, if you knew nothing about me, except that my books were being set in front of you to read, and if you were to read those books in sequence, I don't think you would say to yourself, 'Oh my God, something terrible happened to this writer in 1989.'

Sometimes you find your voice by trying to write like people, and sometimes you find it by trying to write unlike people.