“Judgment is contained in the act of trying to understand.”

But everything of value about me is in my books.

Making a book is such a big enterprise.

Ignorant people in preppy clothes are more dangerous to America than oil embargoes.

I became very interested in the Islamic question, and thought I would try to understand it from the roots, ask very simple questions and somehow make a narrative of that discovery.

Home is, I suppose just a child’s idea. A house at night, and a lamp in the house. A place to feel safe.

There are two ways of talking. One is the easy way, where you talk lightly, and the other one is the considered way. The considered way is what I have put my name to.

I don’t feel I can speak with authority for many other people.

If a writer doesn’t generate hostility, he is dead.

You need someone to see what you’ve done, to read it and to understand it and to appreciate what’s gone into it.

The melancholy thing about the world is that it is full of stupid people; and the world is run for the benefit of the stupid and common.

I still think it’s really quite wonderful when I read a sentence of mine and it has that quality of lastingness.

An autobiography can distort; facts can be realigned. But fiction never lies: it reveals the writer totally.

The Europeans wanted gold and slaves, like everybody else; but at the same time they wanted statues put up to themselves as people who had done good things for the slaves.

The ancillary aspect of every British city now is the council estate.

I am the kind of writer that people think other people are reading.

It is important not to trust people too much.

Don’t be concerned about whether people are watching you or criticizing you.

A new idea must not be judged by its immediate results.

Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day; while failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day.

Judge me by my past, don’t get mad when I put you there.

Be curious, not judgmental.

If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.

A lot of people judged me. I like the way it looks, so you have to be confident.

Success in life is the result of good judgment. Good judgment is usually the result of experience. Experience is usually the result of bad judgment.