There's a lot of conflict and darkness inside everybody's family. We all pretend to outsiders that it's not so but behind locked doors there are usually high emotions running.

The glamour of being forbidden must not be underestimated.

I don't feel American. I do feel like a New Yorker. I think there's a real distinction there. A city allows you to become a citizen even when you're not a national.

I do think of Bombay as my hometown. Those are the streets I walked when I was learning to walk. And it's the place that my imagination has returned to more than anywhere else.

The Chinese are good at repression and can be pretty ruthless about it.

Ideas are interesting to me, and religions are a place where ideas have been very subtly embodied for thousands of years. All literature started as sacred literature.

Nobody ever recognizes themselves unless they are not the character. There are many people who have claimed to be in my books, but unfortunately they were usually people that I didn't know.