That's one of the great sadnesses of any life - knowing what you know now and then remembering what you did not know then.

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.

Realism is criminal.

I'm still not totally sure I know what's true about me.

I dont really take anything from home except some U.S. magazines and books and definitely some U.S. music. There are just certain songs that remind me of home.

Being judgmental about your own behavior is actually another cop-out because it makes you feel as though you're doing something virtuous.

I was thrilled with how the first series of 'Sherlock' was received. It was such great fun to film, which makes it so rewarding when something you enjoy is so well received.

Emotionally, I was affected a lot by Rage Against the Machine, not specifically the literal intention of the words or what it was about, but the feel, the sound, those phrases that got me.

All education is the art of making men ethical (sittlich), of transforming the old Adam into the new Adam.

Seemingly unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. Much progress, therefore, depends on such people.

Anybody who tells you to have a fallback plan are people who had a fallback plan, didn’t follow their dreams, and don’t want you to either.

The most important thing is to be happy and true to yourself. I don't want to look back at this in 30 years from now and say, 'I did it all to make them happy and I didn't enjoy.'