I've always thought that one of the things that the Internet and the gaming world permits as a narrative technique is to not tell the story from beginning to end - to tell stories sideways, to give alternative possibilities that the reader can, in a way, choose between.

Islam is unusual in that it's the only one of the great world religions which was born inside recorded history. That there's an enormous amount of factual historical record about the life of a prophet and about social conditions in Arabia at that time. So it's possible to look at the origin of Islam in a scholarly way.

There is nothing like a War for the reinvention of lives.

Home is the place where you feel happy.

When people use the term magic realism, usually they only mean 'magic' and they don't hear 'realism', whereas the way in which magic realism actually works is for the magic to be rooted in the real. It's both things. It's not just a fairytale moment. It's the surrealism that arises out of the real.

Sometimes legends make reality, and become more useful than the facts.

I beat my sons in real-life table tennis, but virtually, I get murdered. I download games on the iPhone that I'm addicted to - I'm a master at "Angry Birds."