I grew up in a family in which there was very little religion. My father wasn't religious at all. But he was really interested in the subject of, you know, the birth and growth of Islam. And he basically transmitted that interest to me.

When I was growing up, everyone around me was fond of fooling around with words. It was certainly common in my family, but I think it is typical of Bombay, and maybe of India, that there is a sense of play in the way people use language.

I needed my stuff around me, and in that little cocoon I felt good, and I could work.

I'm no friend of Tony Blair's and I consider the Middle East policies of the United States and the UK fatal.

Science fiction is always a vehicle for ideas. It's the form which allows either movies or books to be an exploration of how we should live.

It's Kennedy's war, Vietnam. Lyndon Johnson got all the flak, but it's Kennedy's war.

A thing that happens to migrants is that they lose many of the traditional things which root identity, which root the self.