What's the use of stories that aren't even true?

Be sure that you go to the author to get at his meaning, not to find yours.

When 'Midnight's Children' came out, people in the West tended to respond to the fantasy elements in the novel, to praise it in those terms. In India, people read it like a history book.

Doris Lessing really doesn't care what the critics say. In fact, she orders her publishers not to send her the reviews and gets cross with them if they do because she doesn't want that in her head. She's going where she's going, and that's where she wants to go.

Terror is glamour - not only, but also. I am firmly convinced that there's something like a fascination with death among suicide bombers.

In the waking dreams our societies permit, in our myths, our arts, our songs, we celebrate the nonbelongers, the different ones, the outlaws, the freaks.

I remember when I was young, many cities in the Muslim world were cosmopolitan cities with a lot of culture.