Following are some of my favorite quotes from Shantaram - the novel by Gregory Roberts
Truth is a bully that we all pretend to like (Karla)
I dont know what frightens me more, the power that crushes us, or our endless ability to endure it (Karla)
Some of the worst wrongs, were caused by people who tried to change things (Karla)
One of the ironies of courage and why we prize it so highly, is that we find it easier to be brave for someone else than we do for ourselves alone.
Happiness is a myth. it was invented to make us buy things (Karla) The only time he ever stopped hating himself was when the risk he faced became so great that he acted without thinking or feeling anything at all (A dutch mercenary)
And I looked at the men, the brave and beautiful men beside me, running into the guns and God help me for thinking it, and God forgive me for saying it, but it was glorious, it was glorious, if glory is a magnificient and raptured exaltation. It was what love would be like, if love were a sin. It was what music would be, if music could kill you. And I climbed a prison wall with every running step.
Nothing in any life, no matter how well or poorly lived, is wiser than failure or clearer than sorrow. And in the tiny precious wisdom they give to us, even those dreaded and hated enemies, suffering and failure, have their reason and their right to be.
Luck is what happens to you when fate gets tired of waiting.
Sometimes you love only with hope, sometimes, you cry without tears. Someetimes, thats all that is left, to cling together till the dawn.
I was grown up enough to understand the feeling of comfort that he felt and small enough to wish and hope Karla saw it and was impressed with it.
It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to be in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured.
Astounding and puzzling images from the city tumbled and turned in my mind like leaves on a wave of wind, and my blood so thrilled with hope and possibility that I couldn't suppress a smile, lying there in the dark...In that moment, in those shadows, I was almost safe.
The past reflects eternally between two mirrors -the bright mirror of words and deeds, and the dark one, full of things we didn't do or say.
Happiness is a myth. It was invented to make us buy new things.
It's such a huge arrogance, to love someone, and there's too much of it around. There's to much love in the world. Sometimes I think thats what heaven is - a place where everybody's happy because nobody loves anybody else, ever. - Karla
we know who we are and define what we are by references to the people we love and our reasons for loving them
You can never tell what people have inside them, until you start taking it away
A dream is a place where a wish and a fear meet. When the wish and fear are exactly the same, we call the dream a nightmare.
Silence is the tortured mans revenge
If fate doesn't make you laugh, you just don't get the joke
Men reveal what they think when they look away, and what they feel when they hesitate. With women, it’s the other way around.
News is about what people do. Gossip is about how they enjoyed doing it.
Nothing grieves more deeply or pathetically than one half of a great love that isn’t meant to be.
There’s no meanness too spiteful or too cruel, when we hate someone for all the wrong reasons.
Every virtuous act has some dark secret in its heart; every risk we take contains a mystery that can’t be solved.
Guilt is the hilt of the knife that we use on ourselves, and love is often the blade; but it’s worry that keeps the knife sharp; and worry that gets most of us, in the end.
At first, when we truly love someone, our greatest fear is that the loved one will stop loving us. What we should fear and dread instead is that we won’t stop loving them, even after they are dead and gone.
She loved the guy. She did it for him. She would’ve done anything for him. Some people are like that. Some loves are like that. Most loves are like that, from what I can see. Your heart starts to feel like an overcrowded lifeboat. You throw your pride out to keep it afloat, and your self-respect and your independence. After a while you start throwing people out—your friends, everyone you used to know. And it’s still not enough. The lifeboat is still sinking, and you know it’s going to take you down with it. I’ve seen that happen to a lot of people here. I think that’s why I’m sick of love.
The ancient Sanskrit legends speak of a destined love, a karmic connection between souls that are fated to meet and collide and enrapture one another. The legends say that the loved one is instantly recognised because she’s loved in every gesture, every expression of thought, every movement, every sound, and every mood that prays in her eyes. The legends say that we know her by her wings—the wings that only we can see—and because wanting her kills every other desire of love.
One of the reasons why we crave love, and seek it so desperately, is that love is the only cure for loneliness, and shame, and sorrow. But some feelings sink so deep into the heart that only loneliness can help you find them again. Some truths about yourself are so painful that only shame can help you live with them. And some things are just so sad that only your soul can do the crying for you.
I love you, Karla,” I said when we were alone again. “I loved you the first second I saw you. I think I’ve loved you for as long as there’s been love in the world. I love your voice. I love your face. I love your hands. I love everything you do, and I love the way you do everything. It feels like magic when you touch me. I love the way your mind works, and the things you say. And even though it’s all true, all that, I don’t really understand it, and I can’t explain it—to you or to myself. I just love you. I just love you with all my heart. You do what God should do: you give me a reason to live. You give me a reason to love the world.
They’d lied to me and betrayed me, leaving jagged edges where all my trust had been, and I didn’t like or respect or admire them any more, but still I loved them. I had no choice. I understood that, perfectly, standing in the white wilderness of snow. You can’t kill love. You can’t even kill it with hate. You can kill in-love, and loving, and even loveliness. You can kill them all, or numb them into dense, leaden regret, but you can’t kill love itself. Love is the passionate search for a truth other than your own; and once you feel it, honestly and completely, love is forever. Every act of love, every moment of the heart reaching out, is a part of the universal good: it’s a part of God, or what we call God, and it can never die.
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