We live in a frightened time, and people self-censor all the time and are afraid of going into some subjects because they are worried about violent reactions.

One of the things a writer is for is to say the unsayable, speak the unspeakable and ask difficult questions.

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

Even when things are at their worst, there's a little voice in your head saying, 'Good story!'

In any authoritarian society, the possessor of power dictates, and if you try and step outside, he will come after you. This is equally true of Sovietism, of China and of Iran, and in our time it has happened a lot in Islam. The point is that it's worse when the authoritarianism is supported by something supernatural.

People don't like being around despair. Our tolerance for the truly hopeless, for those who are irredeemably broken by life is strictly limited. The sob stories we like are the ones that end before we're bored.

I know who I am, I know what I'm for, and I know what I'm willing to fight for.