"We knew nothing but despotism. That is why the very rich Mughal empire could break up into nothing. Turn to dust at t…"

"It turns out now that the Arabs were the most successful imperialists of all time; since to be conquered by them (and…"

"I have told people who ask for lectures that I have no lecture to give. And that is true. It might seem strange that …"

"It [Islam] has had a calamitous effect on converted peoples. To be converted you have to destroy your past, destroy y…"

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

"I have to stress that I was traveling in the non-Arab Muslim world. Islam began as an Arab religion; it spread as an …"

"The only lies for which we are truly punished are those we tell ourselves."

"Men need history; it helps them to have an idea of who they are. But history, like sanctity, can reside in the heart;…"

"What matters in the end in literature, what is always there, is the truly good. And — though played out forms can thr…"

"At the height of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, V.S. Naipaul saw it as ‘a new, historical awakening’, of ‘Indians beco…"