I always knew who I was and where I had come from. I was not looking for a home in other people's lands.

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.

I had no student friends to talk to about literature. My tutor was a really nice man, very charming - but he had no literary judgment.

Whatever extra there is in me at any given moment isn't fully formed. I am hardly aware of it; it awaits the next book. It will - with luck - come to me during the actual writing, and it will take me by surprise

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 writer is all alone.

I profoundly feel that people are letting you down all the time.