“You cannot have a best friend for one hundred and fifty four years without trust.”

“There are no saints either. We are immortal, but not so unlike the humans as you think. We have enemies, we have duties, we hate, we struggle, and we love.”

“You think me noble? She rolled to her side facing him. Am I saint-like? Do I slay dragons and hang the moon as well?”

“The Castus had become a myth to most, a shadow, but Thomas knew that every rumor was rooted in truth.”

“He took her hand without question, without fear, and he never regretted it.”

“Death was constant, unprejudiced to age, race, or creed.”

“Don't cry over someone who wouldn't cry over you.”

“Eventually something you love is going to be taken away. And then you will fall to the floor crying. And then, however much later, it is finally happening to you: youre falling to the floor crying ...”

“Weeping is not the same thing as crying. It takes your whole body to weep, and when it's over, you feel like you don't have any bones left to hold you up.”

“With me and India it's all about leaving and returning. Madras is home. It's a very complicated relationship. When you are away too long you get homesick, and when you are there too long you are si...”

“It dawned on me that no person is as poetically homesick as someone who has come to New York for the first time and glimpsed a small vestige of her home state.”

“But it wasn't the right season to lift off. Not yet. I sat in my apartment and looked out over the city, and I just didn't feel any passion to write about the place. I didn't give a damn about loca...”

“War always reaches the depths of horror because of idiots who perpetuate terror from generation to generation under the pretext of vengeance.”

“No time to spare: the expression assumed its full significance, as so many expressions do in wartime.”

“This time we'll be fighting for the nation. The company commander says that it's better to be the ghost of a fallen soldier than a nationless slave. For the sake of our fellow countrymen, our famil...”