Kirpal's left hand swoops down and catches the dropped fork an inch from the floor and gently passes it into the fingers of his daughter, a wrinkle at the edge of his eyes behind his spectacles.

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.

[She wasn't] a logically reasoning woman, but God is good, and hearts may count in heaven as high as heads.

Failure is a steppingstone to poverty, Cosmic Ordering is an elevator to success.

A perfectly normal person is rare in our civilization.

You're gone and you left me. My heart has dissipated. The only thing I can feel is the blood rushing through my veins and the strings that hold my fragile heart together.

It's not your job to like me, it's mine

But if you were matched, " I say softly, "What do you think she'd be like?""You, " he says, almost before I've finished. "You,

Have I had two roads, I would have chosen their third.

Technology may change rapidly, but people change slowly. The principals [of design] come from understanding of people. They remain true forever.

I don't think I've been too optimistic. The government believes the contraction will be around 1.5 per cent, as the central bank said. However, we're waiting to see the Commission estimate.

"thanks" in MaoriGrateful living: an alchemic operation of converting "disgraceful" things into grateful events.