Everyone writes in Tolstoy's shadow, whether one feels oneself to be Tolstoyan or not.
I've never had a study in my life. I'm like Jane Austen - I work on the corner of the dining table.
When we tackle obstacles, we find hidden reserves of courage and resilience we did not know we had. And it is only when we are faced with failure do we realise that these resources were always there within us. We only need to find them and move on with our lives.
India should walk on her own shadow - we must have our own development model.
I was a disadvantaged child from a non-educated family, yet I had the advantage of being in the company of great teachers.
One of the more difficult tasks for me as president was to decide on the issue of confirming capital punishment awarded by courts... to my surprise... almost all cases which were pending had a social and economic bias.
Over the years, I had nurtured the hope to be able to fly; to handle a machine as it rose higher and higher in the stratosphere was my dearest dream.
I don't ever remember a single day of hopelessness. I knew from the history of the labor movement, especially of the black people, that it was an undertaking of great trial. That, live or die, I had to stick with it, and we had to win.
Some things are very low profile, but if they excite me creatively, I accept them. Sometimes there are high-profile projects, and you have to do it. We all have human limitations. It is a painful decision to turn things down. Even accepting 'Slumdog Millionaire' was a decision that I had to sacrifice another project.
I hated being a novelist when I was 20 - I had nothing to write about.
