I can see a version of my life where it all becomes meaningless. On a good day, writing seems noble. Other times, it's narcissistic and pointless.

I suffer from vertigo. It's paralyzing in extreme situations. The most scared I've been as an adult was trying to conquer that fear by going climbing in Wales.

I'm fascinated by the emergence of a global class. They're highly mobile; they reject the idea of place.

In my early teens, science fiction and fantasy had an almost-total hold over my imagination. Their outcast status was part of their appeal.

Intellectuals who live in Hungary, or who wish to work or lecture there, are extremely circumspect in their criticism.

There are still some terrible cliches in the presentation of Indian fiction. The lotus flower. The hennaed hands. In mainland Europe, people still slap these images on my books and I go bananas.

When I try to understand somebody, create a character, I fall into them. When I think writers are telling me what to think, I get harrumphy.

Critchley and Webster’s fierce, witty exploration of Hamlet makes most other writing about Shakespeare seem simpleminded.

There's an explosion of Indian fiction of all kinds, from military thrillers to chicklit. I think that's exciting.

Suburbia is all about private ownership and not having to share, and it leads to a paranoid, defensive mindset. I know this, having grown up in Essex.

Some books I've kept because the binding is beautiful - I'm unlikely ever to read my grandmother's copy of 'The Life of Lord Nelson.' I'm addicted to secondhand bookshops.

The original stories are mined out, and all that’s left is fool’s gold.

Got a bout of doubt? Breathe.

How grateful I am for the law of tithing. It is the Lord's law of finance.

These Days I'm feeling real good.

She did not know the nature of her loneliness. The only words that named it were: This is not the world I expected.

They looked great, you know the drawings of the guys playing looked great and bits of string around their necks. So it didn't seem to be that difficult a thing to do, or that inaccessible.

We have now reached a turning point in the struggle between freedom and terror.

The most important person on this earth is you. What are you doing to help the most important person in this world: you? To live right, you have to exercise, have goals and challenges.

For the stage displays the first vigorous expression, as the natural thing and without conspicuous restraint, of private individuality.

Almost all the moral good which is left among us is the apparent effect of physical evil.