Quotes from Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Can't you ever be serious?' I said, mortified. 'It's difficult,' he said. 'There's so little in life that's worth it.

Your childhood hunger is the one that never leaves you.

There was an unexpected freedom in finding out that one wasn't as important as one had always assumed!

Expectations are like hidden rocks in your path—all they do is trip you up.

The heart itself is beyond control. That is its power, and its weakness.

Aren't we all pawns in the hands of time, the greatest player of them all?

That's how it is sometimes when we plunge into the depths of our lives. No one can accompany us, not even those who would give up their hearts for our happiness.

Because ultimately only the witness -- and not the actors -- knows the truth (Vyasa to Draupadi)

She who sows vengeance must reap its bloody fruit.

A situation in itself," he said, "is neither happy nor unhappy. It's only your response to it that causes your sorrow.

Each spice has a special day to it. For turmeric it is Sunday, when light drips fat and butter-colored into the bins to be soaked up glowing, when you pray to the nine planets for love and luck.

A problem becomes a problem only if you believe it to be so. And often others see you as you see yourself." I

Wisdom that isn't distilled in our own crucible can't help us.

time is the great eraser, both of sorrow and of joy.

How can I forgive if you are not ready to give up that which caused you to stumble?

wait for a man to avenge your honor, and you'll wait forever.

I saw something I hadn't realized before: words wasted energy. I would use my strength instead to nurture my belief that my life would unfurl uniquely.

Everytime i have turned the page he re-enters my life as awkward as postscript

this time I didn't launch into my usual tirade. Was it a memory of Krishna, the cool silence with which he countered disagreement, that stopped me? I saw something I hadn't realized before: words wasted energy.

Above us our palace waits, the only one I've ever needed. Its walls are space, its floor is sky, its center everywhere. We rise; the shapes cluster around us in welcome, dissolving and forming again like fireflies in a summer evening.

Fenugreek, Tuesday's spice, when the air is green like mosses after rain.

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.

I guess there's a lot we hope for that never happens.

Fennel, which is the spice for Wednesdays, the day of averages, of middle-aged people. . . . Fennel . . . smelling of changes to come.