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.

Death means you are in the third person.

You can't judge the present by the past. Each day is different, and you live it differently.

fear of change is like standing under a hot shower and knowing the moment you'll turn it off you'll be freezing cold

I'm of the age and immaturity level that I cannot give you my respect solely because you are older or ranked higher on an imaginary totem pole. I give you my respect because of your actions.

Of all the idiots I have met in my life and the Lord knows that they have not been few or little I think that I have been the biggest.

To all my political opponents, all and sundry, not only the presidential bets, I would like to offer my hand to friendship.

So a maiden, whilst she remains untouched, so long is she dear to her own; when she has lost her chaste flower with sullied body, she remains neither lovely to boys nor dear to girls.

Progress of a marriage: There was a time when you couldn't make me happy. Now the time has come when you can make me unhappy.

I've learned so many things and a lot of things I've learned the hard way. I look at failure as education in that respect I'm very well educated.

Managers assert drive and control to get things done; leaders pause to discover new ways of being and achieving .

Tis this desire of bending all things to our own purposes which turns them into confusion and is the chief source of every error in our lives.