“There are plenty of good Indian writers in English, and none of us feel we are carrying the burden of being a poster boy.”

I’m not sure anyone can understand a whole life, even their own.

Think of many things. Never place your happiness in one person’s power. Be just to yourself.

I sometimes seem to myself to wander around the world merely accumulating material for future nostalgias.

Quietly they moved down the calm and sacred river that had come down to earth so that its waters might flow over the ashes of those long dead, and that would continue to flow long after the human race had, through hatred and knowledge, burned itself out.

I think it’s possible to be multi-rooted, rather like a banyan tree, without being deracinated.

The thing about inspiration is that it takes your mind off everything else.

Man without life companion is either god or beast.

I don’t think anyone should be banned. If you don’t like a book, set it aside.

Every object strives for its proper place. A book seeks to be near its truest admirer. Just as this helpless moth seeks to be near the candle that infatuates him.

I have a reputation for being hermitlike. I’m not. I’m just obsessed with my work.

I need my natural laziness to be counteracted by obsession in order to do anything.

Good books get praised, bad books get praised. Good books get ignored, bad books get ignored.

I just love music – by no stretch of the imagination am I professionally competent.

And an equation is the same whether it’s written in red or green ink.

Of course, the greater one’s need, the greater one’s propensity to be mesmerized.

And the process of reading is such a private one. I once came into a room where a friend of mine was reading one of my books, and he clicked his tongue impatiently and shooed me off.

Go back and take care of yourself. Your body needs you, your feelings need you, your perceptions need you. Your suffering needs you to acknowledge it. Go home and be there for all these things.

Never underestimate a man’s ability to make you feel guilty for his mistakes.

It is a thousand pities never to say what one feels.

Choose to be optimistic, it feels better.

Less feelings means less goodbyes.

Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.

When men are inhuman, take care not to feel towards them as they do towards other humans.

My dream has become a reality now, and it’s the best feeling I’ve ever had.