We live in an age where the rate of change has been colossal. Colossal. Almost every week there's some transformation of some kind, whether technological or political or scientific, whatever. And I think it's bewildering to human beings to live in a time when they can't take anything as fixed - when everything is shifting and changing all the time.

When you write you in a way write out of what you think of as your best self, the part of you that is lacking in foibles and weaknesses and egotism and vanities and so on. You're just trying to really say something as truthful as you can out of the best that you have in you.

Why speak if you can't manage perfect thoughts, perfect sentences?

I do think of Bombay as my hometown. Those are the streets I walked when I was learning to walk. And it's the place that my imagination has returned to more than anywhere else.

What kind of Christmas present would Jesus ask Santa for?

Children like being a little scared, but they don't want to be disturbed.

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