In a novel, if you're any good, you don't just have good people or bad people. You have complicated people. You have real people.

If you're offended, it's your problem.

Like everybody else, I've had relationships in which I was passionately in love but was completely miserable all the time and didn't trust the person I was in love with one inch.

'The Satanic Verses' was denied the ordinary life of a novel. It became something smaller and uglier: an insult.

I do have a lot of time for people in my life, and friendship is a very important subject for me. I think I'm unusual among the writers I know in that respect.

The west was involved in toppling the Mossadegh government. That ultimately led to the Iranian revolution.

I have to say that after some initial resistance, I'm now a complete 'Game of Thrones' addict.