If we had paid no more attention to our plants than we have to our children, we would now be living in a jungle of weeds.

I'm a failed poet. Maybe every novelist wants to write poetry first, finds he can't and then tries the short story which is the most demanding form after poetry. And failing at that, only then does he turn to the novel.

In literature, there are no borders; it is a universal language that transcends cultures and geographies.