“Anybody looking for a quiet life has picked the wrong century to born in.”

“While I was trying to write, I was trying to grow.”

“… my century..is unique in the history of men for two reasons. It is the first century since life began when a decisive part of the most articulate section of mankind has not merely ceased to believe in God, but has deliberately rejected God. And it is the century in which this religious rejection has taken a specifically political form….”

“I stay quiet; I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea.I'm still mad.”

“The idea of a licentious West that many Arabs hold today closely mirrors the view that Europeans had of the Middle East a couple of centuries or more ago.”

“If Midnight’s Children is India’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, then A Suitable Boy must be its War and Peace.”

“It is worth recalling that Britain, over several centuries, waged a war against homosexuality - in the name of religion, social order, decency, etc. - that certainly equalled, and in its scale probably outstripped, anything that happens in Arab countries today.”