How to forgive the world for its beauty, which merely disguises its ugliness; for its gentleness, which merely cloaks its cruelty; for its illusion of continuity, seamlessly, as the night follows the day, so to speak- whereas in reality life is a series of brutal raptures, falling upon your defenseless hands, like the blows of a woodman's axe?

So India’s problem turns out to be the world’s problem. What happened in India has happened in God’s name. The problem’s name is God.

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

Even when things are at their worst, there's a little voice in your head saying, 'Good story!'

You want all your books to stick around after you've gone.

Matthew Wiener on Mad Men writes the entire series before they start shooting, and if you have that, then what you can do with character and story is not at all unlike what you can do in a novel.

One of the characteristics of mudslinging is that mud sticks if it's thrown with enough force for long enough.