Mangalore, the coastal Indian town where I lived until I was almost 16, is now a booming city of malls and call-centres. But, in the 1980s, it was a provincial town in a socialist country.

It's amazing. The moment you show cash, everyone knows your language.

A man's past keeps growing, even when his future has come to a full stop.

I was looking for the key for years But the door was always open

The moment you recognize what is beautiful in this world, you stop being a slave

You can't expect a man in a dung heap to smell sweet.

Columbia University, where I went to study in 1993, insisted its undergraduates learn a foreign language, so I discovered French.

We are made mysteries to ourselves by the Rooster Coop we are locked in.

See, the poor dream all their lives of getting enough to eat and looking like the rich. And what do the rich dream of?? Losing weight and looking like the poor.

You ask 'Are you a man or a demon?' Neither, I say. I have woken up, and the rest of you are sleeping, and that is the only difference between us.

Neither you nor I speak English, but there are some things that can be said only in English.

Your life is far too valuable to be wasted on the life that everyone else is choosing.

Having a vested interest in other souls unconditionally creates a ripple effect that produces miracles in the lives of those around us.

No one described him better than he did when someone accused him of being rich. “No, not rich, ” he said. “I am a poor man with money, which is not the same thing.

If you are a girl dressing up in the morning thinking about the whole world having a point of view on what you are wearing, it takes the pleasure out of getting dressed.

Those are the voices of my brothers, darling; I love the company of wolves.

Calculus is one course you can come with to your parents and say, I am dropping it. And they'll understand.

The great thing about a short story is that it doesn't have to trawl through someone's whole life; it can come in glancingly from the side.

We may be living in the twentieth century, in resplendent sophistication. But deep down, most of us find ourselves still in the Stone Age of superstition.

I've always wanted to be a professional dancer, I'd always wanted to be a ballerina. I trained for 13 years but it never came to be.

As the owner of the company, I'm always focusing on how my company can do more for less. And it's one of the principles of the world.