A man in a desert can hold absence in his cupped hands, knowing it is something that feeds him more than water.

She had always wanted words, she loved them; grew up on them. Words gave her clarity, brought reason, shape.

That's Anil's path. She grows up in Sri Lanka, goes and gets educated abroad, and through fate or chance gets brought back by the Human Rights Commission to investigate war crimes.

Everyone has to scratch on walls somewhere or they go crazy

The first sentence of every novel should be: Trust me, this will take time but there is order here, very faint, very human.

We are expanded by tears, we are told, not reduced by them.

We all have an old knot in the heart we wish to untie.

The joyful will stoop with sorrow, and when you have gone to the earth I will let my hair grow long for your sake, I will wander through the wilderness in the skin of a lion

There is the hidden presence of others in us, even those we have known briefly. We contain them for the rest of our lives, at every border that we cross.

For the first forty days a child is given dreams of previous lives. Journeys, winding paths, a hundred small lessons and then the past is erased.

Death means you are in the third person.

Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.

Above all, do not attempt to use science (I mean, the real sciences) as a defence against Christianity. They will positively encourage him to think about realities he can’t touch and see.

And I argued with that intelligence estimate and I think it is a responsibility of policymakers to use their best judgment on the basis of the intelligence they've received.

I was obsessed with romance. When I was in high school, I saw 'Doctor Zhivago' every day from the day it opened until the day it left the theater.

I love you Philadelphia. I want to thank you for accepting me, and letting me be me and make this my home forever.

I just plug in and let go.

In the middle of a play, I go crazy and don't realize what I'm doing. I'll snap back to reality and I realize, 'Hey, I just ripped that boy's helmet off,' or, 'I'm over here twisting this guy's knee.

The pursuit of purity is not about the suppression of lust, but about the reorientation of one's life to a larger goal.

The one thing I will never do is buy a shirt because of its name, especially when it's $600 for that shirt. To me, that's ridiculous. It's just a shirt; it's not worth the money.

She sounds like a screeching ex-wife.