I got in a fight with my girlfriend," I said. "I was just driving around, blowing off steam, you know?" Well, you should be more careful where you drive," the officer said. "You're making people nervous. You don't fit the profile of the neighborhood." I wanted to tell him that I didn't fit the profile of the country but I knew it would just get me into trouble.

All art is exploitation.

Humor was an antiseptic that cleaned the deepest of personal wounds.

She was in pain and I loved her, sort of loved her, I guess, so I kind of had to love her pain, too.

If one reads enough books one has a fighting chance. Or better, one's chances of survival increase with each book one reads.

I know I'll keep writing poems. That's the constant. I don't know about novels. They're hard. It takes so much concentrated effort. When I'm writing a novel it's pretty much all I can do. I get bored. It takes months. Movies do the same thing. It's all-encompassing. It feels like I'm going to end up writing poems, short stories and screenplays.

I think a lot of Indians want Indian artists to be cultural cheerleaders rather than cultural investigators.