Everyone has to scratch on walls somewhere or they go crazy

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.

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.

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

Death means you are in the third person.

you can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will.

If you live life on your own terms it shouldn’t feel like a jail cell.

I’d do you both in heartbeat and come back for seconds.

There were only four dissentients, the three dogs and the cat, who was afterwards discovered to have voted on both sides.

I think that saving a little child And bringing him to his own Is a derned sight better business Than loafing around the throne.

Do not speak of repulsive matters at table.

I always make sure that the lid over the keyboard is open before I start to play.

I survived because I was tougher than anybody else.

When a guy is into you, he lets you know it. He calls, he shows up, he wants to meet your friends, he can't keep his eyes or hands off of you.

I may be revered or defamed and decried; But I tried to live my life right.