Suketu Mehta

"Essentially what I said was that people are coming to rich countries from poor countries not because they want to, but because rich countries had stolen the futures of poor countries."

"...I’m always shocked by the lack of historical awareness on the part of the average American. Many of the people who have come here did so to forget history, to turn their backs on history."

"...When people move, everyone benefits. The rich countries benefit. And the migrants themselves benefit. And the countries that they move from benefit because the rich countries aren't making enough babies. The migrants improve their standard of living by an average of fivefold..."

"...I think the difference between alienated writers and sunnier writers—I don’t know if sunnier is a great term—is family. Every time I get alienated, my family comes and visits me. I don’t have the luxury of that French existentialist angst. I have a large extended family and we bicker and fight..."

"A city like Bombay, like New York, that is a recent creation on the planet and does not have a substantial indigenous population, is full of restless people. Those who have come here have not been at ease somewhere else. And unlike others who may have been equally uncomfortable wherever they came from, these people got up and moved. As I have discovered, having once moved, it is difficult to stop moving."

"At the age of fourteen I had experienced a miracle. I turned on a tap, and clean water came gushing out."