What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.

Reading is a very different thing than performing. In fact, one of the things I think that doesn't work in books on tape is if the person doing the reading "acts" too much; it becomes irritating to you listening to it.

Before I came to England, my favorite authors were P. G. Wodehouse and Agatha Christie. I used to devour both.

I remember when I was young, many cities in the Muslim world were cosmopolitan cities with a lot of culture.

A mature society understands that at the heart of democracy is argument.

I suppose authoritarians don't like being made fun of because authoritarian rulers have a very inflated sense of themselves and don't like being deflated, which makes it all the more important to continue to deflate them. These are very courageous people around the world who poke fun from inside these societies. So, we now have to broaden the definition of what we mean by "writer" to include bloggers, cartoonists, song writers, visual artists - all these people are, in different ways, quite brave.

...in words and pickles, I have immortalized my memories, although distortions are inevitable in both methods. We must live, I'm afraid, with the shadows of imperfections.