“The cracks in old friendships are measured in awkward pauses.”

“All writers have their own pet commandments.”

“I spent three and a half years writing the novel 'Chang & Eng,' about the conjoined brothers for whom the term 'Siamese twins' was contrived, and when I think of these afflicted people, my only emo...”

“The main thing is to think strategically about what will engage your readers. Trust me when I tell you that few people are eager to read a story whose opening lines sound like a dissertation on gia...”

“After a life deprived of everything from romantic love to the choice of when to wake up in the morning, after 29 years without the ability to have a career or even to be alone at toilet, the Bijani...”

“Relationships are physics. Time transforms things- it has to, because the change from me to we means clearing away the fortifications you'r put up around your old personality. Living with Susannah ...”

“You can start with nothing and still succeed. However, if you don't start you will never succeed.”

“I think, in storytelling, people want to see triumph, and so it's usually nice to start with failure and see someone somehow rise above it. People like to see people try. And they like to see peopl...”

“There's no idea or concept in comedy you could do that hasn't been attacked from some angle. But if you start leaving punchlines out so you'll look cool, I don't get that. But I don't watch standup...”

“There's a strength in that look, a wilfulness; one would almost call it defiance except that it is so good-humoured. It is the look a woman would wear - would have worn - if she asked a man, a stra...”

“If its reality you want, I suggest you look out the window.”

“Reality is how you look at it”

“This manuscript of yours that has just come back from another editor is a precious package. Don't consider it rejected. Consider that you've addressed it 'to the editor who can appreciate my work' ...”

“Where there is contempt/scornful rejection and slander, there wealth will not remain.”

“Rejection is part of the game. Or rather, rejection is part of the profession. A profession which at times can feel like a game.”