Shantaram

"We live on because we can love, and we love because we can forgive."

"Sooner or later, fate puts us together with all the people, one by one, who show us what we could, and shouldn't, let ourselves become."

"Optimisim is the first cousin of love, and it's exactly like love in three ways; it's pushy, it has no real sense of humour, and it turn s up where you least expect it."

 "Loves are like that. You heart starts to feel like an overcrowded lifeboat. You throw your pride out to keep it afloat, and your self-respect and independence. After a while, you started throwing people out - your friends and everyone you used to know. And it's still not enough. The lifeboat is still sinking, and you know it's going to take down with it. I've seen that happen to a lot of girls. That's why I'm sick of Love."
"For this is what we do. Put one foot forward and then the other. Lift our eyes to the snarl and smile of the world once more. Think. Act. feel. Add our little consequence to the tides of good and evil that flood and drain the world. Drag our shadowed crosses into the hope of another night. Push our brave hearts into the promise of a new day. With love: the passionate search for truth other than our own. With longing: the pure, ineffable yearning to be saved. For so long as fate keeps waiting, we live on. God help us. God forgive us. We live on."


"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."

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


"White face, black heart."


"Do you want to be lonely?" - Tariq


“But I couldn’t respond. My culture had taught me all the wrong things well. So I lay completely still, and gave no reaction at all. But the soul has no culture. The soul has no nations. The soul has no colour or accent or way of life. The soul is forever. The soul is one. And when the heart has its moment of truth and  sorry, the soul can’t be stilled.”


"The wrong thing, for the right reasons."


"Red-lining our lives."


“You can change your life completely with a single thought or a single act of love.”

“No love, is no life.” – Nazeer


“Love, like respect, isn’t something you get; it’s something you give.”


“Who we fight for, who we fight against. That is life.”