Heaven lies around us in our infancy.

It wasn't until I was 37 that I grasped the great truth that you've got to write your own books and nobody else's, and then everything followed from there.

There is, they say, no fool like an old fool.

The greatest pleasure is not - say - sex or geometry. It is just understanding. And if you can get people to understand their own humanity - well, that's the job of the writer.

In India the odd thing is that English is this almost artificial language floating on the surface of a place with about fifty other languages. The same is true of Nigeria but even more so.

No human endeavour can ever be wholly good... it must always have a cost.

I mean, if we're concerned genuinely with writing, I think we probably get on with our work. I think this is very true of English writers, but perhaps not so true of French writers, who seem to read each other passionately, extensively, and endlessly, and who then talk about it to each other - which is splendid.