Quotes from Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Seorang pahlawan tetap pahlawan, tidak peduli apa kastanya. Kemampuan lebih penting daripada kelahiran yang kebetulan." -Duryodana

Watching them, I feel at once happy and lonely. It's not the loneliness of being without a mate, but something more primal. As though I were the only being left on this side of the glass, while the rest of the world—happy, uncaring—lived out its life on the other side.

What enchantment did my betrothed possess that made even enemies forget their ancient rivalries in their desire to make him happy?

The life that you're living today is only a bubble in the cosmic stream, shaped by the karma of other lifetimes. The one who is your husband in this birth was perhaps your enemy in the last, and he whom you hate may have been your beloved. Why weep for any of them, then?

What I am leaving behind—I cannot articulate what it is, but I know I will not find it, ever, in America.

I have been overwhelmed by gifts and good wishes all week. So many from people who I thought did not care, so many from people whose love I had done little to deserve. But then, love is never about deserving, is it? Nor is hate.

How little we know our own reputations, I thought with a bitter smile.

I've done nothing wrong - nothing except follow my heart. But the world is cruel to women who love.

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.

Spices why must you always compare. Each desire in the world is different, as is each love. You who were born in the world's dawning know this far better than I. Answer. Weigh it yourself: To him I will give one night, to you the rest of my life, whatever you choose it to be, one hundred years on the island or a single moment, conflagration and consuming, in Shampati's fire. As

The maharaja, though not particularly handsome himself, likes having good-looking men around him. I admire the confidence that enables him to do that.

Spices why must you always compare. Each desire in the world is different, as is each love. You who were born in the world's dawning know this far better than I. Answer. Weigh it yourself: To him I will give one night, to you the rest of my life, whatever you choose it to be, one hundred years on the island or a single moment, conflagration and consuming, in Shampati's fire.

At an earlier time, she would have read into these gestures what she longed for; now she is grateful and resigned.

If there is one thing his story has taught me, it is that when all the dross is melted away from the human heart, only gold remains.

I was learning more about the twisted paths along which love swept us humans along than I'd ever expected—or wanted.

Perhaps only when one possessed a greater treasure could one let go of this world.

He'd probably kill us both with the same blow. A little part of my mind said, That's all right. It would be better than living on alone if he killed Ram.

I pondered the word endure, what it meant. It didn't mean giving in. It didn't mean being weak or accepting injustice. It meant taking the challenges thrown at us and dealing with them as intelligently as we knew until we grew stronger than them. That was what I'd work on.

My presence would comfort my sister, who had looked up to me all her life. Wasn't that my duty too? Hadn't my mother told me to take care of her? These different loves and duties battled within me, but finally, my love for Ram won. Was it the right choice? I'd never be sure.

And that is how, poised in the sky between our new life and our old one, the life we cannot yet imagine and the one we've already begun to forget, I tell her a tale to make her heart strong, to graft her life onto. For of all things in this world it seems to me that that is what women most need.

To think that I'll have to go and live with a stranger. That I'm supposed to belong to some man I haven't even met as soon as he puts a garland around my neck. Oh, why can't I just remain single? Why must I be yoked to a man like a cart to a buffalo?

Perhaps I believed it would give me back what wifehood had taken away. Or perhaps it is just that desire lies at the heart of human existence. When we turn away from one desire, we must find another to cleave to with all our strength—or else we die.

But to whom can she say this? Who will listen to her? The power she possessed even a few days ago, as the Sarkar's favourite queen, has faded.

be polite and respectful to all and don't take sides.