We made no inquiries about India or about the families people had left behind. When our ways of thinking had changed, and we wished to know, it was too late. I know nothing of the people on my father's side; I know only that some of them came from Nepal

The world is always in movement.

Writers should provoke disagreement.

Small things start us in new ways of thinking

Whenever I have had to write fiction, I've always had to invent a character who roughly has my background.

The ancillary aspect of every British city now is the council estate.

The melancholy thing about the world is that it is full of stupid people; and the world is run for the benefit of the stupid and common.