When...did it become irrational to dislike religion, any religion, even to dislike it vehemently? When did reason get redescribed as unreason? When were the fairy stories of the superstitious placed above criticism, beyond satire? A religion was not a race. It was an idea, and ideas stood (or fell) because they were strong enough (or too weak) to withstand criticism, not because they were shielded from it. Strong ideas welcomed dissent.

perhaps, if one wishes to remain an individual in the midst of the teeming multitudes, one must make oneself grotesque.

I have been a film buff all my life and believe that the finest cinema is fully the equal of the best novels.

Sometimes by a woodland stream he watched the water rush over the pebbled bed, its tiny modulations of bounce and flow. A woman's body was like that. If you watched it carefully enough you could see how it moved to the rhythm of the world, the deep rhythm, the music below the music, the truth below the truth. He believed in this hidden truth the way other men believed in God or love, believed that truth was in fact always hidden, that the apparent, the overt, was invariably a kind of lie.

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

Bread and books: food for the body and food for the soul - what could be more worthy of our respect, and even love?

Sometimes writing a novel is not unlike having a baby. You'd have to ask a female novelist to compare the pain.