“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.”

“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.”

“That echo. It played in his head at unexpected moments, repeating certain sounds and making nonsense of them. But could you remember an echo? Memory itself was like another kind of echo, everything...”

“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”

“I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous. They don't teach you how to be rich or how to...”

“[C]oncepts of dying in to a heaven or hell seem a good deal more political than spiritual. (124)”

“I want to live the rest of my life, however long or short, with as much sweetness as I can decently manage, loving all the people I love, and doing as much as I can of the work I still have to do. ...”

“Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that youve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you sa...”

“As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.”

“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there i...”