I think that England made a very big, historical mistake to allow itself to become the kind of terrorist capital of the world.

India is my kid sister.

From the beginning men used God to justify the unjustifiable.

Human beings understand themselves and shape their futures by arguing and challenging and questioning and saying the un-sayable, not by bowing the knee whether to gods or to men.

It's always been colossally important to me that my books should be well received in India. It's where I come from.

Friendships are the family we make - not the one we inherit. I've always been someone to whom friendship, elective affinities, is as important as family.

But love is what we want, not freedom. Who then is the unluckier man? The beloved, who is given his heart's desire and must for ever after fear its loss, or the free man, with his unlooked-for liberty, naked and alone between the captive armies of the earth?