Friendships are the family we make - not the one we inherit. I've always been someone to whom friendship, elective affinities, is as important as family.

We are the only animals that tell stories to understand the world we live in.

Live on, survive, for the earth gives forth wonders. It may swallow your heart, but the wonders keep on coming. You stand before them bareheaded, shriven. What is expected of you is attention.

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

If you give in to the threat of violence, if you give in to bullying, what you know is that there will be more bullying. There will not be less bullying. If you appease the bully, you make sure that he will bully you some more. Not less. It doesn't solve the problem. It makes the problem worse.

Sometimes I think that when people become famous, there's a public perception that they are not human beings any more. They don't have feelings; they don't get hurt; you can act and say as you like about them.

I've never yet managed to write a novel which didn't have an Indian central character.