Khattam-Shud,' he said slowly, 'is the Arch-Enemy of all Stories, even of language itself. He is the Prince of Silence and the Foe of Speech. And because everything ends, because dreams end, stories end, life ends, at the finish of everything we use his name. "It's finished," we tell one another, "it's over. Khattam-Shud: The End.

If bigots behave like bigots, it's not a huge surprise.

Fundamentalists of all faiths are the fundamental evil of our time.

Our lives are not what we deserve; they are, let us agree, in many ways deficient.

Sometimes we feel we straddle two cultures; at other times, that we fall between two stools.

Shame is like everything else; live with it for long enough and it becomes part of the furniture.

Someone asked me if I was afraid to write my memoirs. I told him: 'We have to stop drawing up accounts of fear! We live in a society in which people are allowed to tell their story, and that is what I do.'