You want to suggest something new, but at the same time, resolve the drama of the action in the novel.

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.

Breathe in the small things

Time is compressed like the fist I close on my knee ... I hold inside it the clues and solutions and the power for what I must do now.

My mom says you only need three people you can rely on to achieve self-actualization.

He that would be a great man must learn to turn every accident to some advantage.

I love Françoise Hardy. She's my dream, she's just amazing.

When I'm doing a photo shoot, I'm not playing a part. I'm just trying to be myself.

In any government bureaucracy, they are not working for you but for the mythical blob called the 'public sector,' which is really nothing but a stash of stolen cash divided among the robber class.

I really enjoy doing sitcom television. It allows me to stay in Los Angeles and spend more time with my husband and kids.

It's hard being part of a married couple in a band.

My name is Jared Howe. I haven't spoken to another human being in more than two years, so I'm sure I must seem...a little crazy to you.