My experience growing up in a rough and tumble town in the blue-collar world of Western Pennsylvania in the 1970s was that anything a man did was always more important than anything a woman did.

Writing an essay is like a school assignment: I have my topic, I organize my thoughts, and I write it. I have complete control over what I'm doing. Writing a novel is like setting out on a journey without knowing who or what I'll encounter, how long it's going to take, or where I'm going to end up.

Mining is a dangerous profession. There's no way to make a mine completely safe: These are the words owners have always used to excuse needless deaths and the words miners use to prepare for them.

People, including me, can get so detached from everything, but when you can focus on a defined place, a home, it gets you back in touch.

My career is a burden, but I can't just fade out like a pathetic sore loser. More often than not, I'm just making a fool of myself for the hundredth time, and that wasn't part of the plan, initially. I'd be happier not having any kind of public presence whatsoever and just hiding behind the sleeves of the CD.

In interviews I gave early on in my career, I was quoted as saying it was possible to have it all: a dynamic job, marriage, and children. In some respects, I was a social adolescent.

I did not come to Mumbai to act. I came here to look for a job as our business had shut down, and it was a difficult time for us.

I had prostate cancer. It was rather painful and, in many ways, life-changing.