Quotes from Tony D'Souza

I have no doubt that 'On the Road' is a Great American Novel. But I'm also certain my students will do fine without it.

It is not good to be so much away from one's own people. It is the sort of thing known to make one strange.

Drive fast and swerve a lot.

Every gift is held by two hands: the one that gives, and the one that takes away.

Oh, man, why is this the life? Why is it? Why is one rich and the other poor? Why is one black and the other white?

The only proof of God in the world was color. Everything would have worked the same without it. So why would the world have been made so full of color if there wasn't a God?

I'm sorry that I hurt you." "You didn't hurt me." There was a long pause on the phone. Then she said,"You are going to hurt from this longer than I ever will. It's true that I didn't know what kind of Indian you were. But what hurts me most is to know what kind of man.

Whole villages of Muslims had been hacked to pieces by drunken Christian youth, and as foreigners, we should have been pulled out by the organization. But the U.S. government supported the Christian tribes, just as the French had all through the colonial days, and to pull us out would have meant admitting that things weren't as stable for their puppet government as the western companies, trading in Ivory Coast for cocoa, rubber, and timber, and selling Coke and cigarettes, wanted to hear.

Let the weight of the stars lay on our chests

It is good that a man should have his wife close at hand. It makes the spirit happy and guards against insanity.

Of course you are American,' he said, and waived his hand, like waving away the sentiment. 'What other country can throw away money sending its people to live with savages?

In the time it takes American literary titan William H. Gass to write a novel, other artists have been born, completed their life's work and died. That may be an exaggeration, but only a slight one.