For me, George Saunders novel [Lincoln in the Bardo] is about a problem of pain.

I like books that expose me to people unlike me and books that do battle against caricature or simplification. That, to me, is the heroic in fiction.

World makers, social network makers, ask one question first: 'How can I do it?'

Because immigrants have always been particularly prone to repetition - it's something to do with that experience of moving from West to East or East to West or from island to island. Even when you arrive, you're still going back and forth; your children are going round and round. There's no proper term for it - original sin seems too harsh; maybe original trauma would be better.

She had that thing most people don't have - curiosity. She might not have always got the right answers, but she wanted to ask the questions. It's very hard if you are interested in ideas and all that, ideas and the philosophies of the past, it's very hard to find someone around here to really talk to. That's the tragedy of the thing really I mean, when you think about it. Certainly I can't find anyone around here to talk to anymore. And for a woman it's even harder you see. They can feel very trapped - because of the patriarchy. I do feel everyone needs to have these little chats now and then.

She wore her sexuality with an older woman's ease, and not like an awkward purse, never knowing how to hold it, where to hang it, or when to just put it down.

13.5 Mrs. Wolfe asks whether Mr. Iqbal expects her Susan to undertake compulsory headstands. 13.6 Mr. Iqbal infers that, considering Susan's academic performance and weight problems, a headstand regime might be desirable.