[On her writing agenda:] Make the familiar exotic; the exotic familiar.

In India, there are real consequences to inattention; drivers who jeopardize pedestrians can be lynched on the spot.

What was the duty of the teacher if not to inspire?

The traveler feels at home everywhere, because she is never at home anywhere.

Through my fiction, I make mainstream readers see the new Americans as complex human beings, not as just The Other.

I feel empowered to be a different kind of writer. The longer I stay here, the more light filters into my work. I feel very American. I belong.

In other words, my literary agenda begins by acknowledging that America has transformed me. It does not end until I show how I (and the hundreds of thousands like me) have transformed America.

What was the function of poetry if not to improve the petty, cautious minds of evasive children?

I am a naturalized U.S. citizen, which means that, unlike native-born citizens, I had to prove to the U.S. government that I merited citizenship.

Growing up in an old-fashioned Bengali Hindu family and going to a convent school run by stern Irish nuns, I was brought up to revere rules. Without rules, there was only anarchy.

We do things when it is our time to do them. They do not occur to us until it is time; they cannot be resisted, once their time has come. It's a question of time, not motive.

God would not have brought you to this place to leave you here without the archangel's help.

The government, whether state or central, is elected. That means we have a responsibility to elect the right kind of leaders.

I loved eating and I did put on weight. I never actually felt fat until I started going for castings, for auditions.

Any simpleton can speak with confidence. Sometimes the greatest fools have the most bravado.

Race, and the discussion of it brings out the bad, the good and the crazy in us.

I am a law only for my kind, I am no law for all.

I'm supremely uninterested as to what is written in many of the newspapers.

And my career, the things that have happened have happened because of my music education background.

I want to let fans know how much I appreciate them and how much I appreciate them showing interest in our music and me personally.

Find fault, when you must find fault, in private, if possible; and some time after the offense, rather than at the time.