People always want to identify a writer with their protagonist.

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

A new car is not going to change your life.

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.

All the dead bolts, pulled shades and hidden knives in the world couldn't protect you from the truth.

The eye is diverted from the real business, it is caught by the spectacular action that means nothing--nothing at all.

In aptitude tests, I scored highest in music.

In Spain, attempting to obtain a chicken salad sandwich, you wind up with a dish whose name, when you look it up in your Spanish-English dictionary, turns out to mean: Eel with big abcess.

You never worry about the last laugh if you've been laughing the whole time

The story of every great Christian achievement is the history of answered prayer.

Is it not rather what we expect in men, that they should have numerous strands of experience lying side by side and never compare them with each other?

I cannot understate the ability to handle classical texts such as Shakespeare.

Talking about money is garish. It's tacky.

Always have com­plete faith in the indwelling God who takes care of everything. True greatness can only come from faith.