The miniatures of the Mughal period are really the pinnacle of Indian artistic achievement. And not a single one of those paintings is done by an individual artist.

Why obliterate the exceptional merely in order to make the outstanding look finer than it was?

The difference between memoir and autobiography, as far as I see it, is that a memoir is there primarily to tell one particular story, whereas an autobiography tries to be a full account of a life.

I'm not saying I am never going to fall in love again, but there is no need to marry.

When you are writing a book, it feels as if you are simply concentrating on the world of the book and that whatever is happening in your personal life is outside the room, as it were. But maybe that's just the way you have to talk to yourself to make it possible.

There is a point beyond which conciliation looks like capitulation. I do not believe I passed that point, but others have thought otherwise.

Realism can break a writer's heart.