People are always telling me that they've seen people reading my books on the subway, or the beach, or whenever.

I'm a reader of Chinese literature, I like their films, but also: I've had great difficulty getting my work published in China; very little of it has been published there. The first two attempts to have all of my work published, for instance, were refused without any reason ever being given.

Sometimes great, banned works defy the censor's description and impose themselves on the world - 'Ulysses,' 'Lolita,' the 'Arabian Nights.'

You don't that often see writers being sought out when there are matters of great moment to discuss. And I think that's a loss.

I grew up falling in love with kind of story, amazing, wonder tale of the East, which if you're a child growing up in India is all around you.And I think one of the gifts it gave me as a writer was this early knowledge that stories are not true.

In the real world, immeasurable hurt is caused by terrorists based in Pakistan who attack countries like India.

The Koran was revealed at a time of great change in the Arab world, the seventh-century shift from a matriarchal nomadic culture to an urban patriarchal system.