Unfortunately, the problem of the free speech argument is that you have to defend people you can't stand.

Too many people spouting too many words, and in the end those words will turn to bullets and stones.

This is going to make me sound ancient, but I remember Juhu Beach when there weren't any buildings on it. You'd go through countryside and arrive at this amazing beach. I remember driving from Delhi to the Qutab Minar through countryside. Mehrauli was a little village - that's all gone.

I don't feel American. I do feel like a New Yorker. I think there's a real distinction there. A city allows you to become a citizen even when you're not a national.

I didn't become a writer to write about me.

A novel, I think, is partly about the contemporary and partly about the eternal, and it's the balance of that that's difficult to achieve.

I needed my stuff around me, and in that little cocoon I felt good, and I could work.