I was very happy in Bombay. I was good at school. There was no reason to change anything. I suppose it must have been some spirit of adventure, of wanting to see the world.

What kind of idea are you? Are you the kind that compromises, does deals, accomodates itself to society, aims to find a niche, to survive; or are you the cussed, bloody-minded, ramrod-backed type of damnfool notion that would rather break than sway with the breeze? – The kind that will almost certainly, ninety-nine times out of hundred, be smashed to bits; but, the hundredth time, will change the world.

Sometimes you find your voice by trying to write like people, and sometimes you find it by trying to write unlike people.

There is no alternative to the peaceful coexistence of cultures.

Writers have been in terrible situations and have yet managed to produce extraordinary work.

The gamble of literature is that I make the best work I can; the most truthful, the most representative of how I see things. I try and do that and then I put it out there and say to you, "What do you think?" I hope that you think well of it, obviously.

He knew what he knew: that the real world was full of magic, so magical worlds could easily be real.