Quotes from Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Perhaps that is the miracle of stories. They make us realize that we're not alone in our folly and our suffering.

And that is the final advice that I leave for my children: my dearest boys, balance duty with love.

These mental lessons were the most difficult of all. I was never sure whether I mastered them or not. If I asked the bow, it would only say, frustratingly, 'There's more to learn. Because a trained mind is your strongest ally—and an untrained one your worst enemy.

As for being pawns," Krishna was saying, "aren't we all pawns in the hands of Time, the greatest player of them all?

Others see you as you see yourself.

For the sake of my daughters in the centuries to come, I must now stand up against this unjust action you are asking of me.

They say in the old tales that when a man and a woman exchange looks the way we did, their spirits mingle. Their gaze is a rope of gold binding each to the other. Even if they never meet again, they carry a little of the other with them always. They can never forget, and they can never be wholly happy again.

For isint that what our homes are ultimately, our fantasies made corporeal, our secret selves exposed?

Todas las historias tienen muchas versiones distintas. La versión elegida nos revela más acerca del narrador que acerca de la historia.

I would approach the problem aslant. No matter what my father's intention, I could still make Arjun's heart beat faster. I could still influence how he thought. Perhaps Time was the master player. But within the limits allowed to humans in this world the sages called unreal, I would be a player, too.

Bushes would pull in their sharp thorns and burst into flower when I watered them or loosened the earth around their roots. Squirrel-like creatures, their long white hair smooth as silk-thread, would scurry up to take berries from my palm.

I was forced to face the truth. Ram no longer cared for me. Or if he did, it was pushed deep down inside him, suffocated by kingship. And since the children came from my body and were subject to the same gossip and doubts, he couldn't afford to care for them either.

Don't fret,' the bow said. 'You have many journeys in your future, some of which you'll wish you didn't have to undertake. And as for coming from somewhere far away, you, too, have done that.

I've been sent," the sorceress said to me, "to fill some of the bigger gaps in your largely useless education.

This is the tragedy of Hindustan: our disunity. Our enemies have used it against us over and over.

The truth is less glamorous than our imagination.

was not kind to people who place principles before practicality.

Your first lesson, princess, is to know how to sidestep questions you don't want to answer. You do it by ignoring them.

Distance is a great promoter of harmony: a fact that women who find themselves in situations similar to mine should keep in mind.)

aren't we all pawns in the hands of Time, the greatest player of them all?

Now, for the first time, he looked at me with respect, the way one might gaze at an equal. It made me glow with satisfaction. At the same time, though, I was saddened. What I'd taken as admiration all these years had really been a kind of indulgence, the way one might praise a child for her childish achievements.

That woman's going to be the death of you!" Dhai Ma wailed. "She's wearing you down to skin and bone." But this was not true. The sorceress had taught me a yogic breath that filled me with energy so that I needed no other sustenance.

I knew now that love—no matter how deep—wasn't enough to transform another person: how they thought, what they believed. At best, we could only change ourselves.

She taught me when to lie and when to speak the truth. She taught me to discover a man's hidden tragedies by reading the tremor in his voice. She taught me to close myself off from the sorrow of others so that I might survive. I understood that she was preparing me for the different situations that would appear in my life.