Water is the exile, carried back in cans and flasks, the ghost between your hands and your mouth.

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.

I have seen the best of you, and the worst of you, and I choose both.

Why are they all staring?" demanded Albus as he and Rose craned around to look at the other students."Don’t let it worry you, " said Ron. "It’s me. I’m extremely famous.

I am aware that it can be easily missed, but once you have the ability to uncover and clarify real needs – the things that really matter - you can discuss in detail how you meet each and every one

Even when opportunity knocks, a man still has to get up off his seat and open the door.

The great disadvantage of being in a rat race is that it is humiliating. The competitors in a rat race are by definition rodents.

You can look at my palm and see the storm coming. Read the book of my life and see I've overcome it.

A king is a man strong of character and conviction who leads by example and truly cares for the suffering of his people,not a brute who rules simply because he is the strongest.

When we're infused with either enthusiasm or awe or fondness ... it changes what we see. It changes what we remember.

Apocalypse has come and gone. We're just grubbing in the ashes.

A home without a dog is merely a shelter.