People’s identities as Indians, as Asians, or as members of the human race, seemed to give way – quite suddenly – to sectarian identification with Hindu, Muslim, or Sikh communities.
Suddenly
I was a very shy girl who led an insulated life; it was only when I came to Oxford, and to Harvard before that, that suddenly I saw the power of people. I didn’t know such a power existed, I saw people criticising their own president; you couldn’t do that in Pakistan – you’d be thrown in prison.
The irony is that the more we fight age, the more it shows. Paint on a 50-year-old face brings to mind a Gilbert and Sullivan comic figure. Smooth the cheeks, and suddenly the ear lobes and hands look out of place. Do we run around in October, painting the gold leaves green?
I’ve never been more famous than I was, suddenly, in 1986.
Old age comes on suddenly, and not gradually as is thought.
When I’m in certain moods, a conversation will start up in my head, and suddenly I’ll realize that the language has reached a very high and interesting level, and then lines and stanzas will just kind of appear, full-blown.
Suddenly, as rare things will, it vanished.
Since the intervention in Afghanistan, we suddenly began to notice when, in political discussions, we found ourselves only among Europeans or Israelis.
As humans, we’re so easily persuaded. We join this cause or that cause, and suddenly the other thing is wrong.
The bohemian life that reigned in Paris until the end of the ’50s is gone. The artists had more time to think, to reflect; success didn’t come so suddenly.