My heart broke open and history fell in.

I've met the Dalai Lama briefly, but I would probably say my grandfather was the wisest person I ever met. He was my mother's father, an Indian, a family doctor, and very unlike me in that he was deeply religious.

Things, even people have a way of leaking into each other like flavours when you cook.

The thing that I think was very brave of my younger self was that he decided he would be an idiot. Just persevere. That feels brave to me: deciding that I'm going to damn well be this person that I've set my heart on being.

I make no complaint. I am a writer. I do not accept my condition; I will strive to change it; but I inhabit it, I am trying to learn from it.

Writers and politicians are natural rivals. Both groups try to make the world in their own images; they fight for the same territory.

Freedom is not a tea party, India. Freedom is a war.