Quotes from Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

All through the history of the world, the virtuous have suffered for causes unseen. Learn from Nal and Damayanti to bear your misfortunes bravely. Like theirs, your evil times, too, will come to an end.

At what point does forbearance cease to be a virtue and become a weakness?)

I am turmeric who rose out of the ocean of milk when the devas and asuras churned for the treasures of the universe. I am turmeric who came after the nectar and before the poison and thus lie in between.

But sometimes the only way to healing is through the corridor of pain.

Did you ever think how monotonous your life would be if you could see all that was coming to you?

Something had happened as I lay in the field, watching the sky, an understanding that I couldn't control the lives of others—but neither could they control mine.

And under it all, earth waited with her lead-filled veins, impatient to shrug herself clean.

A wise person allows herself to be used when it suits her purpose. She pretends weakness, then waits for the right moment to take control.

So this, too, was true of love: it could make us forget our own needs. It could make us strong even when the world was collapsing around us.

Perhaps that was why I had to endure pain— because true transformation can only happen in the crucible of suffering. All impurities fall away from gold only when it's heated to melting.

She put on some music. Drum and flute, I think. She played it soft, because it was dreadfully late, a time when all good men and women, or at least the practical ones, had gone to bed. Then she danced for me.

Wait for a man to avenge your honour and you'll wait forever.

Daughter and mother, mother and daughter. Though we would like to think otherwise, how our lives echo each other's.

I learned a new fact about love that day: it could kill. Sometimes it could kill instantaneously.

it's not enough to merely love someone. Even if we love them with our entire being, even if we're willing to commit the most heinous sin for their well-being. We must understand and respect the values that drive them. We must want what they want, not what we want for them.

This was my first lesson on the nature of love: that in a moment it could fulfil the cravings of a lifetime, like a light that someone might shine into a cavern that has been dark for a million years.

He never wasted time, Ram, especially on things he believed he couldn't change.

Just as you've deceived me, so will your mind deceive you. When you need the Brahmastra the most, you'll forget the mantra needed to call it up.

Anything that makes us forget our true selves is a trap, princess—even something we love or define as beautiful.

Such rulers were adored by the citizens they protected, but often their families had to bear the brunt of sacrifice.

Like many Indian children, I grew up on the vast, varied, and fascinating tales of the Mahabharat.

Distance is a great promoter of harmony

Such is the ancient law of the universe. Of karma and its fruit. The idea of motive is irrelevant to it.

I want to weep too, not for me but for us all--for rich or poor, educated or illiterate, here we are finally reduced to a sameness in this sisterhood of deprivation.