I turned to the Partition experiences, which were churning in my mind. Then came my first novel Train to Pakistan.

Morality is a matter of money. Poor people cannot afford to have morals. So they have religion.

No one has invented a condom for the pen yet. My pen is still sexy.

Your principle should be to see everything and say nothing. The world changes so rapidly that if you want to get on you cannot afford to align yourself with any person or point of view.

When the world is itself draped in the mantle of night, the mirror of the mind is like the sky in which thoughts twinkle like stars.

The last to learn of gossip are the parties concerned

Freedom is for the educated people who fought for it. We were slaves of the English, now we will be slaves of the educated Indians—or the Pakistanis.

When you have counted eighty years and more, Time and Fate will batter at your door; But if you should survive to be a hundred, Your life will be death to the very core.

But big people’s illnesses are always made to sound big. The simple shutting and opening of the royal arse-hole was made to sound as if the world was coming to an end.

I have never lost my temper. I let out my venom in my writing if I have to, but person-to-person, I have never lost my temper, never used abusive language.

I acquired long-lived parents. My mother died at 94. Father died at 90, holding a glass of whisky. I think that's the secret of longevity - to have long-lived parents. The rest is discipline.

I'm thankful that I have lived long enough to become a legend, and I hope I deserve it.

It's funny because I'm a sucker for glitz and glitter when it comes to clothes and nail polish, but with my makeup, I'm more comfortable with a natural look. It feels more like me.

The only thing that can save the world is the reclaiming of the awareness of the world. That's what poetry does.

The problem after a war is with the victor. He thinks he has just proved that war and violence pay. Who will now teach him a lesson?

Active management is a zero-sum game before cost, and the winners have to win at the expense of the losers.

if a builder builds a house and the house falls and kills some one in the house the owners may kill the builder.

A lot of things in history change over time.

Beauty, like ice, our footing does betray; Who can tread sure on the smooth, slippery way: Pleased with the surface, we glide swiftly on, And see the dangers that we cannot shun.

All things atrocious and shameless flock from all parts to Rome.

If you are not satisfied with what is coming to you, start to work and change your mental attitude and mental states, and you will see a change gradually setting in.