This paranoid Islam, which blames outsider, 'infidels', for all the ills of Muslim societies, and whose proposed remedy is the closing of those societies to the rival project of modernity, is presently the fastest growing version of Islam in the world.

In the '50s, listening to Elvis and others on the radio in Bombay - it didn't feel alien. Noises made by a truck driver from Tupelo, Mississippi, seemed relevant to a middle-class kid growing up on the other side of the world. That has always fascinated me.

I have had many more close women friends than men, and I've always assumed that comes from the fact that in my family there was such a disproportionate female element.

Sometimes writing a novel is not unlike having a baby. You'd have to ask a female novelist to compare the pain.

I never planned to be a model at all. I moved to Paris to study art, and I was there working as an artist, taking classes, and I had a little sick dog that I was using up all of my money to try and heal. It was right at that point that this photographer, Errol Sawyer, saw me at the phoning office and convinced me to let him take my photo.

Well, in the theater, I think you're actually more responsible for what is going on onstage as a director than you are in film.

When someone's a writer, it's very creative and moody, and you think of someone walking around the office in pajamas thinking of ideas.

It's a great thing if you're a creative person and have some kind of acting or dance or singing, any art. I think it's great to be around people who support that and who are into it like you are, and you can have one big family and teachers who know what they're doing.