I have to teach myself not to read too much into everything. It comes from too long having to read into hardly anything at all.

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.

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

Kindness always works with the most important person — YOU. Be kind for you, not others.

Go beyond of what's expected of you.

Where there is murder, anything can happen.

Nightmares are at all times better than real life

Even though there may be times It seems I'm far away Never wonder where I am 'Cause I am always by your side.

The form of a town changes more swiftly alas! Than the heart of a mortal.

a woman, when she is heroic, is not heroic by halves.

You're not always going to be at your best, but it better be the best you've got that day.

My mission is to convert every Indian, every Englishman and finally the world to nonviolence for regulating mutual relations, whether political, economic, social or religious.

I don't care what people say about me. I do care about my mistakes.