“Tiananmen Square in early 1989 attracted many dreamers like Ma Jian, w...” — Pankaj Mishra Quote

“Tiananmen Square in early 1989 attracted many dreamers like Ma Jian, who returned from Hong Kong to a one-room shack in Beijing in order to join the student protests.”

“Basically, I think of fiction and non-fiction as different ways of engaging with the world. You reach a point where you feel you have said all you possibly can, in reportage or a review essay or a reflection on history, which 'From the Ruins of Empire' was.”

“To Westerners, the students at Tiananmen may have given an impression of a solid and energetic consensus against dictatorship and for democracy, but they were an egotistical and fractious lot, riven by disagreements over tactics and money.”

“I started out as a novelist and wrote several novels before deciding to publish one, and I fully intend to go back to the form.”

“Though blessed with many able administrators, the British found India just too large and diverse to handle. Many of their decisions stoked Hindu-Muslim tensions, imposing sharp new religious-political identities on Indians.”

“I think I was attracted to Trump because he was a business man first. He isn't a politician. He spoke with common sense and he was fearless.”

“I'm not really attracted to a big, jacked guy. I think that's a little excessive.”

“Nostalgia is a very complicated subject for me. I'm attracted by nostalgia but I refuse it intellectually.”

“It's something that I've always been attracted to, that idea of letting everything happen in a single frame.”

“When I was growing up, I was always looking for the most willfully uncommercial music: Whether it was Captain Beefheart or Frank Zappa or King Crimson, that's what attracted me.”

“It's all because of my parents that I am gifted with such good looks and people get attracted to me. I have built an image in the industry, and because of that, I have so many female fans. I want to build my male fan following, too.”