The past has to be seen to be dead; or the past will kill.

I think when you see so many Hindu temples of the 10th century or earlier disfigured, defaced, you realise that something terrible happened. I feel the civilisation of that closed world was mortally wounded by those invasions the old world is destroyed. That has to be understood. Ancient Hindu India was destroyed.

If ever you wish to meet intellectual frauds in quantity, go to Paris.

That element of surprise is what I look for when I am writing. It is my way of judging what I am doing - which is never an easy thing to do.

There are two ways of talking. One is the easy way, where you talk lightly, and the other one is the considered way. The considered way is what I have put my name to.

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

One always writes comedy at the moment of deepest hysteria.