I tend not to know what the plot is or the story is or even the theme. Those things come later, for me.

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.

Some of the smartest men have a hard time comprehending the obvious.

Some people change when they think they're a star or something.

1992 became known as the 'Year of the Woman' because so many of us were elected to public office that November, including a record six to the United States Senate.

Everyone is growing and developing. Everyone has to go through a trial and eror process of finding what is right.

It is impossible to found a civilization on fear and hatred and cruelty. It would never endure.' 'Why not?' 'It would have no vitality. It would disintegrate. It would commit suicide.

The only person more cynical than a drunk is a reformed drunk.

We fret about how to keep going the same old way when we should be casting around for another way that’s better.

Money is just another word for power.

I kicked college nostalgia in my late 20s. As much as I loved college and treasure the memories, I no longer want to go back.

The journal and Gansey were clearly long acquainted, and he wanted her to know. This is me. The real me.