I don't want you to think that I'm being willfully obtuse, but I've never really grasped how point of view could be regarded as a matter of choice in….

I am sympathetic to the kind of faith that does not evangelize or raise banners but is the faith drawn on by a lone human being as a means of support….

The technology broadens an individual's social field massively and at the same time makes it much, much easier and cheaper to consume gossip. We have….

Of course, an English aristocrat might have some contact with the staff downstairs and could adequately say a thing or two about inter-class dramas u….

My own disposition is to trust the reader. Of course, there's a line between trusting the reader and expecting her to read your mind. That's where a ….

News has a way of distancing us from events, even as it informs us about them. News articles almost always present both the event and the responses a….

Until I reached my late teens, there was not enough money for luxuries - a holiday, a car, or a computer. I learned how to program a computer, in fac….

Novels need readers of a certain kind, people who are patient and enjoy immersing themselves in another perspective for uninterrupted stretches of ti….

Listening to people discussing a novel can be very interesting, if you've read whatever novel is being discussed. No one, it seems, ever says, "This ….

There are a variety of ways in which a wedge is driven between the reality of the world outside, the motion of atoms, and our conception of what is t….

I'm not sure, however, that what I have amounts to faith in the sense commonly understood. I have difficulty understanding the function of the word "….

One problem I have with talking about myself in the context of class divisiveness is that I can be - and indeed have been - used by others to demonst….

Another effect of news articles is that the events, however frightening, can thus be consigned to the box of things that happen to other people, not ….

There have been studies concluding that most people mostly know people only within their own social class - although such a conclusion would hardly s….

By delivering experience, novels can alter the stance we adopt toward news - not much, I'm sure, but they can make it a little more difficult for us ….

Experience belongs to the actor, but the story belongs to the teller. We write so we will never forget..

I'm interested in how a person forms her beliefs, how that happens. Beliefs of all kinds make up the animating force in each of us. Without them we w….

I had an indefatigable curiosity about everything. But why should my fate have depended upon that? Why does the curiosity of a child born into the lo….

I had a tough childhood, yes. I was born in rural Bangladesh to parents who had had no education beyond high school. We moved to the UK where I grew ….

A poison can hardly be called safe if for some reason specific to me it's ineffective against, say, my body. But the power of story on the human mind….

I am at my happiest when I'm problem solving and a large part of writing is for me a lovely labor in problem solving. Every act of discovery in writi….