A new car is not going to change your life.

The thing about getting older is that you don't need everything to be possible any more, you just need things to be certain.

If the culture is so all pervasive that you can’t think outside of it, how are you making genuine choices?

If you think you are powerless, then you are

I'm very eclectic in my music tastes - anything from Nina Simone to Beethoven to Talvin Singh.

You know how if you're born in a certain situation you always expect your life to run on a steady trajectory? I've never really had a sense of that. I assume that life is going to go up and down.

The thought of writing was always pleasant, but the process was painful

I was always an outsider, always standing outside, observing and trying to figure things out. Which is exactly what you need to do as a writer, I suppose.

I started writing 'Brick Lane' when my children were two years and five months old. We were on holiday in the north of England when I was overtaken by a compulsion to start writing.

I don't want to get hung up on what 'people,' that nebulous mass, think about me. That's the way to unhappiness, I think.

I always try to create conflict and drama in my books; it's the engine of the novel.

Impossible things are really rough to do, you know.

We need to find a balance between protecting our local economies while pursuing the longer-term goal of producing clean, affordable and reliable power.

Anthropology found its Galileo in Rivers, its Newton in Mauss.

I have several Scottish Terriers. I find them to be the most wonderful dogs.

As much as we thirst for approval we dread condemnation.

What if God’s 'NO,’ is really a gift? His way to protect us from what we cannot see, provide something better than we can imagine, or be part of the process of growing us closer to Him.

A country that is governed by its national army can never be morally free and, therefore, its so-called weakest member can never rise to his full moral height.

The atmosphere is the key symbol of global interdependence.

I try to be really, really specific, because each character is really an individual and you have to find out what makes them unique.

Don't attribute mishaps to a lapse in concentration - if you missed the note you don't know it.