What night gave Rafael was a formlessness in which everything had a purpose. As if darkness had a hidden musical language.

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.

Kindness can be short, sweet, transient, and random, but its effects echo forever.

So what is a good meditator? A good meditator meditates.

I’d been doing everything to please everyone else and some imaginary me.

Anything that hinted at corruption always filled him with a wild hope

There are many things in this life capable of throwing people off course - the death of someone close, the loss of income or health, the realisation that cherished hopes cannot always be fulfilled

The only energy that has any power in your life is the gift of breath from God.

When the hares have all been caught, the hunting dogs are cooked.

The aid we can give each other is only incidental, lateral, and sympathetic.

It's very important to set your place in a concrete environment. I think Chekhov said that the important thing when you have a play or any kind of novel is to set the roots in a concrete place.

Comedy is easy. First, people have to fall down. Next, include someone a little hefty. It's a hoot.