Her grief grieved her. His devastated her.

If you're not religious, then look at it this way. This world of ours is four thousand, six hundred million years old. It could end in an afternoon.

Nilekani's technocratic obsession with gathering data is consistent with that of Bill Gates, as though lack of information is what is causing world hunger.

I sometimes think I was perhaps the only girl in India whose mother said, "Whatever you do, don't get married". For me, when I see a bride, it gives me a rash. I find them ghoulish, almost.

Novels are such mysterious and amorphous and tender things. And here we are with our crash helmets on, with concertina wire all around us.

Human rights takes history out of justice.

She viewed ethnic cleansing, famine and genocide as direct threats to her furniture.

Humans are animals of habit.

Thousands are losing their jobs and homes, while corporations are being bailed out with billions of dollars.

To stay quiet is as political an act as speaking out.

India is still flinching from a cultural insult, still looking for its identity.

Insanity hovered close at hand, like an eager waiter at an expensive restaurant.

Fiction is the most joyous, beautiful, sophisticated, wonderful thing in the world.

Of course, there's an alternative to terrorism: it's called justice.

To call someone 'anti-American', indeed, to be anti-American, is not just racist, it's a failure of the imagination.

I am an artist and a writer, and I do think that one always places oneself in the picture to see where one fits.

People always loved best what they identified most with.

I don't want to be a victim. I don't want to disappear into the darkness.

The U.K. and the U.S. are quite similar in that they have high-productivity, English-speaking workforces who don't mind working long hours. Working in those countries is not a problem.