When you write, you write out of your best self. Everything else drops away.

Sometimes we feel we straddle two cultures; at other times, that we fall between two stools.

I will come back to India - so deal with it.

I needed my stuff around me, and in that little cocoon I felt good, and I could work.

I used to write a monthly column for the 'New York Times' syndicate. But I stopped because I found it really hard to have one extreme opinion a month. I don't know how these columnists have two or three ideas a week; I was having difficulty having 12 things to say a year.

One of the strange things about violent and authoritarian regimes is they don't like the glare of negative publicity. If you can make them sufficiently uncomfortable, they frequently respond by doing what you need them to do in the spirit of setting people free or ceasing arrests, which has worked time and time again with PEN.

I did a lot of student acting when I was young.