When I Learnt To Write I Became

To Read A Newspaper For The First Time Is Like Coming Into A Film That Has Been On For An Hour. Newspapers Are Like Serials. To Understand Them You Have To Take Knowledge To Them; The Knowledge That Serves Best Is The Knowledge Provided By The Newspaper Itself.

I'm Thought To Be A Tough Writer, But I'm Really A Softie.

I Think When You See So Many Hindu Temples Of The 10th Century Or Earlier Disfigured, Defaced, You Realise That Something Terrible Happened. I Feel The Civilisation Of That Closed World Was Mortally Wounded By Those Invasions The Old World Is Destroyed. That Has To Be Understood. Ancient Hindu India Was Destroyed.

It Is Wrong To Have An Ideal View Of The World. That's Where The Mischief Starts. That's Where Everything Starts Unravelling.

I Often Wonder What Would Have Happened To Me If I Hadn't Made That Decision. I Suppose I Would Have Sunk. I Suppose I Would Have Found Some Kind Of Hole And Tried To Hide Or Pass. After All, We Make Ourselves According To The Ideas We Have Of Our Possibilities. I Would Have Hidden In My Hole And Been Crippled By My Sentimentality, Doing What I Was Doing, And Doing It Well, But Always Looking For The Wailing Wall. And I Would Never Have Seen The World As The Rich Place That It Is. You Wouldn't Have Seen Me Here In Africa, Doing What I Do.