she had a laugh that hinted it had rolled around once or twice in the mud.

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.

Corporate rule number 7

The coding was anachronistic, kind of like bokeh in a renaissance painting.

Capitalism, after all, is no fun when real failure becomes a possibility.

The most identifiable trait of Anglo-Saxons is that we always mistake a short memory for a clear conscience.

I am an employment hyena. I am happy to make a meal of what the lions leave behind.

My life is very crazy and busy, but I love it that way.

There aren't many fathers around here...If someone is old enough to father a child, he should be old enough to help bring it up.

I'm trying to die correctly, but it's very difficult, you know.

I never viewed money as being 'my money' I always saw it as 'the money.' It's a resource. If it pools up around me then it needs to be flushed back out into the system.

Isn't there any other part of the matzo you can eat?