But I - and I just think it's very - one of the problems of defending the extraordinary principle of freedom of speech is that you have to defend freedom of speech for people like that too.

People are always telling me that they've seen people reading my books on the subway, or the beach, or whenever.

Pakistan is alarmed by the rising Indian influence in Afghanistan, and fears that an Afghanistan cleansed of the Taliban would be an Indian client state, thus sandwiching Pakistan between two hostile countries. The paranoia of Pakistan about India's supposed dark machinations should never be underestimated.

'The Satanic Verses' was denied the ordinary life of a novel. It became something smaller and uglier: an insult.

If you're going to write a memoir, try to be as honest and open as you can.

Our lives are not what we deserve; they are, let us agree, in many ways deficient.

The thing I really like about Twitter is the speed with which information reaches me. You find out things from Twitter long before they're on the news. That, I think, is valuable.