There's nothing New York likes more than a thing. Or a place. Or a place that's a thing. Or a thing that happens to be a place.

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.

Self-efficacy is the belief in one's capabilities to organize and execute the sources of action required to manage prospective situations.

The process of living seems to consist in coming to realize truths so ancient and simple that, if stated, they sound like barren platitudes.

I read your secrets to escape from my own.

We're destroying our water supplies like you can't even imagine.

Standing in public in other people's clothes, pretending to be someone else. It's a strange way for a grown man to make a living.

Anybody who's a guitar player that's spent that time with another guitar player, there's nothing better than that.

I can't believe food costs money.

Government is the enemy of conservatism and freedom.

If you sing to the mermaids, they come when you're drowning.