For echo is the soul of the voice exciting itself in hollow places.

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.

He hoped that none of his descendants would get mixed up in politics, which was a trade for butchers and bandits.

A simple life is good with me. I don't need a whole lot. For me, a T-shirt, a pair of shorts, barefoot on a beach and I'm happy.

I used to go to musicals every birthday - that was my birthday present. We'd go to London, me and my two brothers and mum and dad. I think I saw 'Mamma Mia' about five times.

We bear, all of us, the misfortunes of other people with heroic constancy.

When I, who is called a "weapon" or a "monster", fight a real monster, I can fully realize that I am just a "human".

But I'm still a work in progress. My mother calls me quite frequently with various critiques of my performance on TV and other public events. She's usually pretty severe with her comments.

You've got to tell a story, paint a vision, know your metrics and sell, sell, sell.

And Burke, could he see our century, never would concede that a consumption-society, so near to suicide, is the end for which Providence has prepared man.

Many people think spirituality has nothing to do with success or accomplishing - that it's something you do with removal, with leaving the world.

If your enemy is superior, evade him