Things happen once only and are never repeated, never return. Except in memory.

The only way you can be universal is to be sure you are very specifically local.

He feared at certain moments that the only new knowledge he would take away from this country was learning how to swim and use the telephone.

All of them would understand, as he did now, that he had crossed a line in himself, he had left their world behind, the decent world of tea parties and suburban witticisms.

What he sensed more than anything else was kindness – a kindness of a human and immediate sort. It was surprising how very radical this simple emotion could be.

The Indians were inside their bodies, he decided, in a way that the British were not. His own flesh impeded his spirit.

I am happy to see you, Maso

Goldie was a believer in the imperial project, which is to say, in the civilising power of social progress.

It is always an attractive moment when curiosity takes hold.

A silence followed, while the two men contemplated dying for love.

What I don’t understand about your type is that you want to emulate the other side. You kick up such a commotion about being different, and all you want is to be the same.

...You mistake other people’s success as your own failure...

Good conductors know when to let an orchestra lead itself. Ninety percent of what a conductor does comes in the rehearsal - the vision, the structure, the architecture.

I'd been ill and hadn't trained for a week and I'd been out of the team for three weeks before that, so I wasn't sharp. I got cramp before half-time as well. But I'm not one to make excuses.

I believe it is the responsibility and duty of those in high-profile positions to give a voice to people whose voices cannot be heard.

If you're weird, it's good to be weird.

I wasn’t sure if I was charmed by his reluctance to share a bed with a girl or insulted that, apparently, I wasn’t hot enough for him to charge the mattress like a bull.

I haven't got any kids yet and it is something I need to address. I'm sure that, God willing, that'll be the next and most fabulous episode of my little life.

The courts of kings are full of people, but empty of friends.

The only reason I left was to protect you.

The silence of a flower: a kind of silence which we continually evade, of which we find only the shadow in dreams.