There can be nothing more humiliating for a writer of fiction to have to do than restate a case that has already been made.

Enemies can't break your spirit, only friends can.

Who can know from the word goodbye what kind of parting is in store for us.

Even in the most uneventful of our lives, we are called upon to choose our battles...

Some writers like to boil down headlines of liberal newspapers into fiction, so they say there shouldn't be communal riots, everybody should love each other, there shouldn't be boundaries or fundamentalism. But I think literature is more than that; these are political views which most of us hold anyway.

I don't want to play these games of statistics any more; I have done that. I don't want to be imprisoned by that, or by the morality that is expected of activists. I have never been that pristine person, that role model.