Truth, at the wrong time, can be dangerous.

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.

Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings so that you shall come easily by what others have labored hard for.

Look heavenly onward.

Every thought is a seed. If you plant crab apples, don't count on harvesting Golden Delicious.

Sailing, the most expensive way to travel 3rd class

True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it is lost.

I have a lot of shoes.

The business of the statistician is to catalyze the scientific learning process.

We can't depend on consumers to spend money they don't have on stuff they don't need, so the government has to do it for them

Music is the center of my life.

I tried spinning around in a chair to impress a girl.