An attack upon our ability to tell stories is not just censorship - it is a crime against our nature as human beings.

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

Unfortunately, the problem of the free speech argument is that you have to defend people you can't stand.

Throughout human history, the apostles of purity, those who have claimed to possess a total explanation, have wrought havoc among mere mixed-up human beings.

It is very, very easy not to be offended by a book. You just have to shut it.

The response of anybody interested in liberty is that we all have a say and the ability to have an argument is exactly what liberty is, even though it may never be resolved. In any authoritarian society the possessor of power dictates, and if you try and step outside he will come after you.

Question: What is the opposite of faith? Not disbelief. Too final, certain, closed. Itself is a kind of belief. Doubt.