Quotes from Thrity Umrigar

Look to the future, child," her father used to say. "This is why our feet point forward, not back.

He had been in the legal profession long enough to know that human behavior was complicated and unpredictable and that justice always had to be tempered with mercy.

This solidarity business I used to talk about ain't just--what do you youngsters call it?--theoretical. It means putting your body, your physical self, on the line, baby girl. Even when--especially when--it ain't convenient.

I will miss you, he said, and his words was both honey and poison, sun and moon in the same sky.

surely the body also remembers each kindness, each kiss, each act of compassion? Surely this is our salvation, our only hope—that joy and love are also woven into the fabric of the body, into each sinewy muscle, into the core of each pulsating cell?

Bhima had never known that hate could have such a jagged edge. That it could feel so uncomfortable, a constant, pressing thing, like a pebble in a shoe or a piece of clothing two sizes too small. Nor had she known of hate's reductive power - how it took every ancient insult, every old betrayal and burning spot. How it soured everything, as if it were a lime squeezed over the whole world.

It isn't the words we speak that make us who we are. Or even the deeds we do. It is the secrets buried in our hearts." She looks sharply at Bhima. "People think that the ocean is made up of waves and things that float on top. But they forget—the ocean is also what lies at the bottom, all the broken things stuck in the sand. That, too, is the ocean.

unloved, educated or illiterate, wanted or unwanted by her parents, whether or not she suffered hurt and betrayal, or whether she still managed to retain her humanity and nobility? In the end, Bhima thinks, it doesn't matter. It is all ash and dust. This is what it means to be human, she thinks: grains of dust arranged in human form—some dark, some light, some tall, some short, some male, some female. And in the end, the same gust of wind breaks them all down.

Women create, Bhima thinks, men destroy. The way of the world.

Children and flowers," she said. "How can anyone doubt God exists as long as there's children and flowers?

Why worry, if today be sweet'?

When the God enter into your house, he not enter looking like the God. He enter looking like human being. God enter my life looking like Maggie. "Holy cow," Maggie say, laughing. "I

The clarifying principle made clear the impermanence of things. It was an illusion, all of it—this life that they clung to, this earth that they battled over—a collective exercise in self-deception. The world was perishable.

If she has truly been brought so low that she has to second-guess the simple act of sharing a fruit with a woman even more destitute than she, then why not relinquish all claims to human society? She may as well join the pack of stray dogs that lives just outside the slum, who snarl and wrestle each other over a bone.

She feels a sudden, indiscriminate anger, although she's unsure of its target - the Gods who toy with women like her and Parvati for their own amusement, this cruel city that begets so many poor people that it cannot take care of them, or at her own obtuseness.

children, we were taught to be afraid of tigers and lions. Nobody taught us what I know today—the most dangerous animal in this world is a man with wounded pride.

Strength, beti. Be strong. Bibi turns tearfully toward her. "How, mausi?" she asks. "How? He was my rock. How do I learn to see the world through my own eyes?" Bhima falls silent, feeling acutely her own inadequacy. By breathing one breath at a time, she wants to say. By waking up one morning after another. By putting one foot ahead of the next, until your feet recall how to walk again.

This city is like some giant social experiment conducted every single day. This place should be a fucking powder keg—but somehow, it's not.

Mithai teach me big lesson--it easier to love someone if you can make them happy.

How much good fortune had been strewn her way, starting with a man who still put up with her crankiness and irrationalities, who stayed loyal and devoted to her, as if she were the flag of his country.

He listen something in my voice because he look up immediately. His eyes as blue as July sky. His long yellow hair fall like sunshine on his forehead and my finger burn from not touching it.

I will carry you upon my shoulders, my son And climb the tallest mountain So you can behold all the fruit Of our alive and green valley.

Out of our love, we had stitched together our baby. It was the oldest story in the world; it was the newest. Every single thing I had lost in my own life, every motherless moment, I would make up for with my own child. I was laughing-crying at the miracle of this, at this second chance to take this crooked world in my hands and set it correct.

It was as if a gust of wind had blown open a window in my heart and a sweet bird had flown in and made a nest.