QUOTES FROM SHANTARAM

"Shantaram" is such a classic that every line of this 1000-pager can prove a memorable line to think about. My favorites.....

(1) It's forgiveness that makes us what we are.
Without forgiveness, our species would've annihilated itself in endless retributions. Without forgiveness, there would be no history. Without that hope, there would be no art, for every work of art is in some way an act of forgiveness. Without that dream, there would be no love, for every act of love is in some way a promise to forgive. We live on because we can love, and we love because we can forgive.

(2) Sometimes we love with nothing more than hope. Sometimes we cry with everything except tears. In the end that's all there is - love and its duty, sorrow and its truth. In the end that's all we have - to hold on tight until the dawn

(3) 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

(4) The tendency towards complexity has carried the universe from almost perfect simplicity to the kind of complexity that we see around us, everywhere we look. The universe is always doing this. It is always moving from the simple to the complex.

(5) 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 magnificent and ruptured 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.

(6) 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

(7) 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.

(8) 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.

(9) I don’t know what frightens me more, the power that crushes us, or our endless ability to endure it

(10) 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.

(11) 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.

(12) Luck is what happens to you when fate gets tired of waiting.

(13) Sometimes you love only with hope, sometimes, you cry without tears. Sometimes, that’s all that is left, to cling together till the dawn.

(14) 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.

(15) Men reveal what they think when they look away, and what they feel when they hesitate. With women, it’s the other way around.

(16) Happiness is a myth. It was invented to make us buy new things.

(17) It's such a huge arrogance, to love someone, and there's too much of it around. There's too much love in the world. Sometimes I think that’s what heaven is - a place where everybody's happy because nobody loves anybody else, ever.

(18) You can never tell what people have inside them, until you start taking it away

(19) Silence is the tortured mans revenge

(20) News is about what people do. Gossip is about how they enjoyed doing it.

(21) Every virtuous act has some dark secret in its heart; every risk we take contains a mystery that can’t be solved.

(22)...The wrong thing for the right reason…