There was a time when mapmakers named the places they travelled through with the names of lovers rather than their own.

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.

Don’t waste your time on people

It is not the office of a novelist to show us how to behave ourselves; it is not the business of fiction to teach us anything.

It is fitting that at this solemn moment we take the pledge of dedication to the service of India and her people and to the still larger cause of human ity.

It's hard being away from home. But other than that, performing is the highlight of my day.

Acting is my way of investigating human nature and having fun at the same time

Financial struggle is often the direct result of people working all their lives for someone else.

Most actors feel only one way. We're just grateful to have a job.

I look at my hands and go, 'Hmm...what happened? Whose hands are those? Oh my God, they're mine'

It is better to have a sore than a seared conscience.

Let me say and not mourn: the world lives in the death of speech and sings there.