Quotes by Gregory David Roberts

...hed been able to deal with that pain because hed accepted his own part in causing it

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

Justice is not only the way we punish those who do wrong. It is also the way we try to save them

justice is not only the way we punish those who do wrong. It is also the way we try to save them.

And Id learned, the hard way, that sometimes, even with the purest intentions, we make things worse when we do our best to make things better.

In the storm-lit darkness, the beaded sweat and raindrops on her arm were like so many glittering stars, and her skin was like a span of night sky.

Mistakes are like bad loves, the more you learn from, the more you wish theyd never happened.

It isnt a secret, unless keeping it hurts.

What is it? she asked. Im looking for your wings. You are my guardian angel, arent you? Im afraid not, she replied, her cheeks dimplingwith a wry smile. Theres too much of the devil in me for that. Just how much devil, I grinned, are we talking about here?

Its such a huge arrogance to love someone, and theres too much of it around. Theres too much love in this world. Sometimes I think thats what heavens is-- a place where everybodys happy because nobody loves anybody else, ever.

Love survives in us precisely because it isnt wise.

But in a way you can say that after leaving the sea, after all those millions of years of living inside of the sea, we took the ocean with us. When a woman makes a baby, she gives it water, inside her body, to grow in. That water inside her body is almost exactly the same as the water of the sea. It is salty, by just the same amount. She makes a little ocean, in her body. And not only this. Our blood and our sweating, they are both salty, almost exactly like the water from the sea is salty. We carry oceans inside of us, in our blood and our sweat. And we are crying the oceans, in our tears.

A strong man can make his own luck.

The source of all things, the luminescence, has more forms than heavens stars, sure. And one good thought is all it takes to make it shine. But a single mistake can burn down a forest in your heart, hiding all the stars, in all the skies,. And while a mistakes till burning, ruined love or lsot faith can make you think youre done, and you cant go on. But its not true. Its never true. No matter what you do, no matter where youre lost, the luminescence never leaves you. Any good thing that dies inside ca rise again, if you want it hard enough. The heart doesnt know how to quit, because it doesnt know how to lie. You lift your eyes from the page, fall into the smile of a perfect stranger, and the searching starts all over again. Its not what it was. Its always different. Its always something else. But the new forest that grows back in a scarred heart is sometimes wilder and stronger than it was before the fire. And if you stay in there, in that shine within yourself, that new place of light, forgiving everything and never giving up, sooner or later youll always find yourself right back there where love and beauty made the world: at the beginning. The beginning. The beginning.

The source of all things, the luminescence, has more forms than heavens stars, sure. And one good thought is all it takes to make it shine. But a single mistake can burn down a forest in your heart, hiding all the stars, in all the skies. And while a mistakes till burning, ruined love or lost faith can make you think youre done, and you cant go on. But its not true. Its never true. No matter what you do, no matter where youre lost, the luminescence never leaves you. Any good thing that dies inside can rise again, if you want it hard enough. The heart doesnt know how to quit, because it doesnt know how to lie. You lift your eyes from the page, fall into the smile of a perfect stranger, and the searching starts all over again. Its not what it was. Its always different. Its always something else. But the new forest that grows back in a scarred heart is sometimes wilder and stronger than it was before the fire. And if you stay in there, in that shine within yourself, that new place of light, forgiving everything and never giving up, sooner or later youll always find yourself right back there where love and beauty made the world: at the beginning. The beginning. The beginning.

For all his wisdom, he did not know that love cannot be tested. Honesty can be tested and loyalty. But there is not test for love. Love goes on forever, once it begins, even if we come to hate the one we love. Love goes on forever because love is born in the part of us that does not die.

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.

Indians are the Italians of Asia and vice versa. Every man in both countries is a singer when he is happy, and every woman is a dancer when she walks to the shop at the corner. For them, food is the music inside the body and music is the food inside the heart. Amore or Pyar makes every man a poet, a princess of peasant girl if only for second eyes of man and woman meets.

This is not India. There are people here from every part of India, but Bombay isnt India. Bombay is an own-world, a world in itself. The real India is out there.

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