The real risks for any artist are taken in pushing the work to the limits of what is possible, in the attempt to increase the sum of what it is possible to think. Books become good when they go to this edge and risk falling over it -when they endanger the artist by reason of what he has, or has not, artistically dared.

I do think there was a period there when my sanity was under intense pressure, and I didn't know what to say or do or how to act. I was literally living from day to day.

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

If Islam is to be reconciled with modernity, these voices must be encouraged until they swell into a roar.

The West should be tougher on Pakistan. It is trying to play both ends against the middle - to look like the friend of the revolutionaries on the one hand and a friend of the West in the fight against terrorism. It can't be both things.

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

I used to write a monthly column for the 'New York Times' syndicate. But I stopped because I found it really hard to have one extreme opinion a month. I don't know how these columnists have two or three ideas a week; I was having difficulty having 12 things to say a year.