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

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

When people use the term magic realism, usually they only mean 'magic' and they don't hear 'realism', whereas the way in which magic realism actually works is for the magic to be rooted in the real. It's both things. It's not just a fairytale moment. It's the surrealism that arises out of the real.

If I had simply wanted to trade on an insult to Islam, I could have done it in a sentence rather than writing a 250,000-word novel, a work of fiction.

It's true that the human body is more vulnerable than the products of the human mind.

Our lives are not what we deserve; they are, let us agree, in many ways deficient.

My friend Lou Reed came to the end of his song. So very sad.But hey, Lou, you'll always take a walk on the wild side. Always a perfect day.