“One whose knowledge is confined to books and whose wealth is in the possession of others, can use neither his knowledge nor wealth when the need for them arises.”

There are three gems upon this earth; food, water, and pleasing words – fools consider pieces of rocks as gems.

We should not fret for what is past, nor should we be anxious about the future; men of discernment deal only with the present moment.

Water is the medicine for indigestion; it is invigorating when the food that is eaten is well digested; it is like nectar when drunk in the middle of a dinner; and it is like poison when taken at the end of a meal.

Treat your kid like a darling for the first five years. For the next five years, scold them. By the time they turn sixteen, treat them like a friend. Your grown up children are your best friends.

The fragrance of flowers spreads only in the direction of the wind. But the goodness of a person spreads in all direction.

She is a true wife who is clean (suci), expert, chaste, pleasing to the husband, and truthful.

The learned are envied by the foolish; rich men by the poor; chaste women by adulteresses; and beautiful ladies by ugly ones.

Virtuous persons and fruit-laden trees bow, but fools and dry sticks break because they do not bend.

Wealth, a friend, a wife, and a kingdom may be regained; but this body when lost may never be acquired again.

He who look at a woman who is not his wife as a mother; wealth that is not his as dust and all the men as himself… is a happy man. He, who sees all these things under a different light, is a blind.

The beauty of a cuckoo is in its notes, that of a woman in her unalloyed devotion to her husband, that of an ugly person in his scholarship, and that of an ascetic in his forgiveness.

What vice could be worse than covetousness? What is more sinful than slander? For one who is truthful, what need is there for austerity? For one who has a clean heart, what is the need for pilgrimage?

What good is a cow that neither gives milk nor conceives? Similarly, what is the value of the birth of a son if he becomes neither learned nor a pure devotee of the Lord?

Love is indicated by deeds. (and not by words)

The forest fire burns even tree like sandalwood.

Lakshmi, the Goddess of wealth, comes of Her own accord where fools are not respected, grain is well stored up, and the husband and wife do not quarrel.

Books are a narcotic.

The misconception is that standup comics are always on. I don’t know any really funny comics that are annoying and constantly trying to be funny all the time.

A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.

There is one other book, that can teach you everything you need to know about life, it’s The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, but that’s not enough anymore.

All of my books deal in a very rough, rude fashion with subjects about which there are great conflicts of opinion.

Historian Robert Paxton begins one of his books by asserting: Fascism was the major political innovation of the twentieth century, and the source of much of its pain.

Every book is the wreck of a perfect idea.

Starting a novel is opening a door on a misty landscape; you can still see very little but you can smell the earth and feel the wind blowing.