I've never yet managed to write a novel which didn't have an Indian central character.

I grew up kissing books and bread.

There are things you break that can't be put back together again. And Kashmir may be one of them.

A man who catches History's eye is thereafter bound to a mistress from whom he will never escape.

In India, as elsewhere in our darkening world, religion is the poison in the blood. Where religion intervenes, mere innocence is no excuse. Yet we go on skating around this issue, speaking of religion in the fashionable language of 'respect.' What is there to respect in any of this, or in any of the crimes now being committed almost daily around the world in religion's dreaded name?

Can one drown in one's element... If fish can drown in water, can human beings suffocate in air?

I think that a lot of us, whether we are religious or not - there are no words to express some things except religious words. For instance, 'soul.'