I'm the guy who wrote The Authority Song. Did they think I was kidding? Did they think it was only a song to entertain?

Most of my life I was occupied with American television and American food. My ethnicity was my choice. It still is.

Part of me has always wanted to be like Marilyn Monroe or any Fifties Hollywood starlet. On screen, they seemed so sexy and simple and looked after. In real life, I'm none of those things. But I'd...

For a book to function... it has to be a functioning reality. The character has to be real, and I imagine that's exactly what happens for a spy who is in deep cover.

I'm bisexual.

When I wrote my stories in elementary school, I signed them all 'Karen E. Bender' with the squiggly 'E.' I wanted, from an early age, to be a writer, and that name - that E - was a way of pretending I...

We are all quick to point out all the differences but not as willing to accept what bonds us as humans.

I was born in India... Gujarat. I am an Indian! And India is a democratic country, anyone can stand for elections. I can also stand for elections.

If I'm gonna tell a real story, I'm gonna start with my name.

I wasn't born to a wealthy or powerful family - mother from Puerto Rico, dad from the South Bronx.

I know who my dad is, I've met him a few times, but I don't even call him dad. I know it sounds horrible, but I don't even see him as part of my family, to be honest. If you want the truth, it doesn't...

A lot of people think I'm that guy in 'Betsy's Wedding', but I'm not. What it is for me is that, on some level, I connect with the character emotionally.

Theatre was my first love. I can't take the theatre out of me. And I wouldn't want to. To me, it's home.

My sister's journal was the romantic one with boys, and mine was talking about my rock tumbler. We were so different and so similar.

My mom's one of 13 siblings, and they all got six kids, and till I was 13 everybody was in Compton.

Nobody would know it to look at me, but the movies I liked as a kid were musicals - 'All That Jazz,' 'Hair,' 'Fame,' 'Annie,' all that stuff - that's where my little youthful imagination was.

Whenever I think of my birthplace, Walton-on-Thames, my reference first and foremost is the river. I love the smell of the river; love its history, its gentleness. I was aware of its presence from my...

In our family, as far as we are concerned, we were born and what happened before that is myth.

If I am what I have and if I lose what I have who then am I?

We aren't cool and never will be.

She smoothes the front of the dress, looking down at her hands, at her bitten fingernails, at her big feet in the pointy-toe shoes. This is a woman's dress, she thinks, a young woman's dress. It is...

Or maybe they weren't changing. Maybe they were just now becoming what they had always wanted to be.

What is it about guys named Adam?

He was in a strange, badly lit room, wearing even stranger clothes, getting an earful from an unknown woman, in a language that he could and couldn't exactly place in a very disturbing way. These were...

What makes you think that people with other types of clothes are special? I can go to the shop, buy such clothes, and what? Now I am important?

"I believe that we don't choose our stories," she began, leaning forward. "Our stories choose us." She paused and took a sip of water. Her hand, I noticed was steady.. "And if we don't tell them, then...

Fashion is only different skins for different flavours of you.

I may be a famous writer but when white people clinch to their wallet and stare at me with scorn I need to ask my skin why.

Each of us has been designed for one of two immortal functions, as either a storyteller or as a cross-legged listener to tales of wonder, love, and daring. When we cease to tell or listen, then we no...

I'm not ugly but I'm not pretty either. Everything is in-between. I have eyes that aren't green or brown, but a muddle. I'm not thin but I'm not fat either. The only thing you could definitely say...