Many of us didn't believe in the image of bin Laden as a wandering Old Man of the Mountains, living on plants and insects in an inhospitable cave somewhere on the porous Pakistan-Afghan border.

I am the sum total of everything that went before me, of all I have been seen done, of everything done-to-me. I am everyone everything whose being-in-the-world affected was affected by mine. I am anything that happens after I'm gone which would not have happened if I had not come.

One of the things I've learnt is not to depend on there being a woman in your life to make it work. I love my work, I love my children, I've got wonderful friends, you know, I have a nice life.

We are described into corners, and then we must describe ourselves out of corners.

Whores and writers, Mahound. We are the people you can't forgive.

A book is not completed till it's read.

I don't think people cry reading 'Midnight's Children,' but a lot of people seem to cry watching the movie.