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.

My publisher, who was so good as a taster and editor, when she became a writer, lo and behold, it was all this feminine tosh.

All the details of the life and the quirks and the friendships can be laid out for us, but the mystery of the writing will remain. No amount of documentation, however fascinating, can take us there.

My life is short. I can't listen to banality.

I am the kind of writer that people think other people are reading.

If you write a novel alone you sit and you weave a little narrative. And it's O.K., but it's of no account.

It is important not to trust people too much.