I think, in a written novel, the way in which you play with the readers' emotion or the way in which you engage the readers' emotions can be very indirect. You could come at it through irony or comedy, etcetera, and you could capture people's sympathies and feelings kind of by stealth if you like.

I was living in New York at the time of the 9/11 attacks. And I remember, you know, in those weeks that followed, when none of us spoke about anything else really, a number of friends of mine, people I knew, including very experienced journalists, I heard them saying things like, well, now we understand what happened to you.

When you have children, your perspective on the parent-child relationship alters.

I don't like books that play to the gallery, but I've become more concerned with telling a story as clearly and engagingly as I can.

In an ideal world, you could reunite the Pakistan-occupied part of Kashmir with the Indian-occupied part and restore the old borders. You could have both India and Pakistan agreeing to guarantee those borders, demilitarise the area, and to invest in it economically. In a sane world that would happen, but we don't live in a sane world.

Religion is responsible for a lot of the problems in the history of the world and it's not something that I practice or recommend, but to each his own.

O the shame of it, the humiliating shame of being condescended to by dolts