Shantaram still lingers

I have already started on this book by Mark Tully, India in Slow Motion the other day. But after having finished Shantaram last month, I still can't get it off my mind. The pages of the book still linger in my mind like a beautiful disturbing dream. These lines (partial list) will tell you why.

-->Mistakes are like bad loves, the more you learn from them, the more you wish they’d never happened.

-->The best revenge, like the best sex, is performed slowly and with eyes open.

-->Fate always gives you two choices, the one you should take, and the one you do.

-->The difference between news and gossip-News tells you what people did, gossip tells you how much they enjoyed it.

-->A king is a bad enemy, a worse friend, and a fatal family relation.

-->What characterizes the human race more-cruelty or the capacity to feel shame for it?

-->Nothing grieves more deeply or pathetically than one half of a great love that isn’t meant to be.

-->It’s a characteristic of human nature that the best qualities, called up quickly in a crisis, are very often the hardest to find in a prosperous calm.

-->One of the ironies of courage, and the reason why we prize it so highly, is that we find it easier to be brave for someone else than we do for ourselves alone.

-->There’s no meanness too spiteful or too cruel, when we hate someone for all the wrong reasons.

-->Lovers find their way by insights and confidences; they are the stars they use to navigate the ocean of desire. And the brightest of those stars are the heartbreaks and sorrows. The most precious gift you can bring to your lover is your suffering.

-->Some men like you less the more they owe you. Some men only really begin to like you when they find themselves in your debt.

-->Fate’s way of beating us in a fair fight is to give us warnings that we hear, but never heed.

-->Silence is the tortured man’s revenge.

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

-->Cruelty is a kind of cowardice.

-->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.

-->When greed meets control, you get a black market.

-->There’s a little arrogance at the heart of every better self.

-->If you make your heart into a weapon, you always end up using it on yourself.

-->We concentrate our laws, investigations, prosecutions, and punishments on how much crime is in the sin, rather than how much sin is in the crime.

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

-->Happiness is a myth, which was invented to make us buy things.

-->The lies we tell ourselves are the ghosts that haunt the empty house of midnight.

-->There is nothing so depressing as good advice.

-->Pity is the one part of love that asks for nothing in return and, because of that, every act of pity is a kind of prayer.

-->If we envy someone for all the right reasons, we’re half way to wisdom.

-->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 is that we won’t stop loving them, even after they are dead and gone.

-->We know who we are and we define what we are by references to the people we love and our reasons for loving them.

-->If we all learned what we should learn, the first time round, we wouldn’t need love.

-->The fully mature man or woman has about two seconds left to live.

-->Nothing in any life, no matter how well or poorly lived, is wiser than failure or clearer than sorrow.

-->Luck is what happens to you when fate gets tired of waiting.

-->Every human heartbeat is a universe of possibilities.

-->Fate gives all of us three teachers, three friends, three enemies, and three great loves in our lives. But these twelve are always disguised, and we can never know which one is which until we’ve loved them, left them, or fought them.

those who know me real well will know that i don't read much. i get bored with words. i need visuals. visuals. visuals. but there are some five or six books that i love which i read over and over and over and over again. on the road for instance is something i've read more than twenty times. it's my default book where ever i go. sagar has been going on and on about this book Shantaram which he has been looking for forever. he finally found a copy in a bookstore in india. he's been wanting me to read it the thickness is quite intimidating. so one saturday evening, it finally happens. i couldn't find it in my heart to put it down. i can't stop thinking about it. i find myself getting all thrilled to go home early to go back to my reading. and getting up earlier every morning to read a page or two before i go to work. it's like a new love. the first thing you think of in the morning, and the last thing you think of at night. reading it is a thrill unlike any other. it's gripping. arresting. evokes an emotion every single time.

"Mistakes are like bad loves, the more you learn from them, the more you wish they’d never happened."

"Fate gives all of us three teachers, three friends, three enemies, and three great loves in our lives. But these twelve are always disguised, and we can never know which one is which until we’ve loved them, left them, or fought them."

"Truth is a bully that we all pretend to like."

"Some of the worst wrongs, were caused by people who tried to change things."

"Luck is what happens to you when fate gets tired of waiting."