Quotes from Gregory David Roberts

it is possible to do the wrong thing for the right reasons.' He smiled again, for the first time since the story of the escape had begun. 'This will come back to us, at another time. I have raised it in this way because it is a very important point about how we do live our lives, and how we should live our lives.

he'd been able to deal with that pain because he'd accepted his own part in causing it

Continuammo a fissarci per cinque lunghi secondi, mentre miriadi di mondi e vite parallele che avrebbero potuto essere e non saranno mai vorticavano intorno a noi.

her dark silhouette a part of the night itself.

and it was as if my watching eyes had made her shadow come to life, as if my heart alone had painted her from darkness with the light and colours of love.

There is in you, as there is in me, a morbid belief in love, and a fascination for the madness that love puts in its victims.

We stared at one another, his pride riding out to meet my irritation. Men. I liked Vinson, and he liked me, and we were ready to fight.

Suffering, let me see. I think that suffering is a matter of choice. I think that we do not have to suffer anything in this life, if we are strong enough to deny it. The strong man can master his feelings so completely that it is almost impossible to make him suffer. When we do suffer things, like pain and so, it means that we have lost control. So I will say that suffering is a human weakness. - Madjid

Personality and personal identity are in some ways like co-ordinates on the street map drawn by intersecting relationships. We know who we are and define what we are by references to the people we love and our reasons for loving them. I was that point in space and time where Abdullah's wild violence intersected with Prabaker's happy gentleness

eventually three passengers crowded into every seat designed for two.

What am I going to do without music? I asked, aware of how pathetic I sounded, but unable to suppress the whine of disappointment in my voice.

Tell us Lin. I would like to know." "Well, if you press me, I'd have to say freedom." "The freedom to do what?" he asked, putting a little laugh in the last word. "I don't know. Maybe just the freedom to say no. If you've got that much freedom, you really don't need any more.

If reputations were votes, we'd be presidents of somewhere.

It's modest and practical, yet flattering and attractive at the same time.

every kind of suffering, no matter how small or agonisingly great, is a test of love in some way.

Word had spread that the foreigner was arriving.

Il passato si riflette perennemente in due specchi: quello luminoso delle parole pronunciate e delle azioni compiute e quello scuro, colmo di tutte le cose che non abbiamo detto o fatto.

in the centre of six hundred stares and whispers

You know the difference between news and gossip, don't you? News tells you what people did. Gossip tells you how much they enjoyed it.

the more that I tried to ignore it, the more agonizing it felt.

The burden of happiness can only be relieved by the balm of suffering. -Farid

But repression, they say, breeds resistance in some men, and I was resisting the world with every minute of my life.

SUNLIGHT SHATTERED ON THE WATER

What do you say to a huge crowd of strangers who are waiting for you to say something, and who don't speak your language?