Religion?" Mr Kumar grinned broadly. "I don't believe in religion. Religion is darkness.

He's a shy man. Life has taught him not to show off what is most precious to him.

It is true that those we meet can change us, sometimes so profoundly that we are not the same afterwards, even unto our names.

I meet a number of people as a writer of fiction who say "Oh, I don't read much fiction," as if the history of the United States, just as an example, isn't an exercise in storytelling and myth-making.

Colonialism is a terrible bane for a people upon whom it is imposed, but a blessing for a language. English's drive to exploit the new and the alien, its zeal in robbing words from other languages, its incapacity to feel qualms over the matter, its museum-size overabundance of vocabulary, it shoulder-shrug approach to spelling, its don't-worry-be-happy concern for grammar-the result was a language whose colour and wealth Henry loved.

My greatest wish — other than salvation — was to have a book. A long book with a never-ending story. One I could read again and again, with new eyes and a fresh understanding each time.

If you take two steps towards God,' he used to tell me, 'God runs to you!