The Chinese are good at repression and can be pretty ruthless about it.

Have you noticed the physical resemblance between Imran Khan and Gaddafi? If you were making a movie of the life of Gaddafi and you wanted a slightly better-looking version of Gaddafi, you might cast Imran Khan.

I don't like books that play to the gallery, but I've become more concerned with telling a story as clearly and engagingly as I can.

I learned: the first lesson of my life: nobody can face the world with his eyes open all the time.

I'm a world expert on superhero comics. I think maybe only Michael Chabon knows more than me.

Originality is dangerous. It challenges, questions, overturns assumptions, unsettles moral codes.

What I've always tried to find in my books are points at which the private lives of the characters, and also my own, intersect with the public life of the culture.