"A faction willing to take the risks of making war on the ossified status quo in the Middle East can be described as many things, but not as conservative."

"I love it when Muslims go to war with each other, as I do when the Christians do, because it shows there's no such thing as the Christian world and the Islamic world. That's all crap."

"Even if I accepted that Jesus - like almost every other prophet on record - was born of a virgin, I cannot think that this proves the divinity of his father or the truth of his teachings. The same would be true if I accepted that he had been resurrected."

"'WASP' is the only ethnic term that is in fact a term of class, apart from redneck, which is another word for the same group but who are in the lower social strata, so it's inexplicably tied up with social standing and culture and history in a way that the other hyphenations just are not."

"Society is like a stew. If you don't stir it up every once in a while then a layer of scum floats to the top."

"Like most people who live in India, I complain about corruption, but know that I can live with corrupt men. It is the honest ones I secretly worry about."

"I don't really consider any of my novels 'crime' novels."

"The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is marketing. You've got a bunch of faceless people in a back room who trademark a name that sounds very official. Well, if you had thought of it first, you would have been the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame."