Quotes from Rohinton Mistry

Zoroastrianism is about the opposition of good and evil. For the triumph of good, we have to make a choice. We can enlist on the side of good by prospering, making money and using our wealth to help others.

The worst part of great poverty is that you become blind to it.

The whole quilt is much more important than any single square.

You have to maintain a fine balance between hope and despair. In the end it's all a question of balance.

The Law is a grim, unsmiling thing. Not Justice, though. Justice is witty and whimsical and kind and caring.

Did life treat everyone so wantonly, ripping the good things to pieces while letting bad things fester and grow like fungus

If you ignore little things, they become big problems.

But it was an unrefrigerated world. And everything ended badly.

the secret of survival was to balance hope and despair

World can be a bewildering place,and dreams and ambitions are often paths to the most pernicious of traps

The carnage upon the chessboard of life, left wounded humans in its wake

There's only one way to defeat the sorrow and sadness of life - with laughter and rejoicing. Bring out the good dishes, put on your good clothes, no sense hoarding them.

Curious, he thought, how, if you knew a person long enough, he could elicit every kind of emotion from you, every possible reaction, envy, admiration, pity, irritation, fury, fondness, jealousy, love, disgust. But in the end all human beings became candidates for compassion, all of us, without exception...and if we could recognize this from the beginning, what a saving in pain and grief and misery.

independence came at a high price: a debt with a payment schedule of hurt and regret.

Time had changed the magical to mundane

Please always remember, the secret of survival is to embrace change, and to adapt. To quote, All things fall and are built again, and those that build them are gay.

A lifetime had to be crafted, just like anything else, she thought, it had to be moulded and beaten and burnished in order to get the most out of it.

Black money is so much a part of our white economy, a tumour in the centre of the brain - try to remove it and you kill the patient.

Make up your mind, yaar, choose one thing.' 'How can I? I'm just a human being,' he replied

there was another, gorier parturition, when two nations incarnated out of one. A foreigner drew a magic line on a map and called it the new border; it became a river of blood upon the earth. And the orchards, fields, factories, businesses, all on the wrong side of that line, vanished with a wave of the pale conjuror's wand.

The lives of the poor are rich in symbols.

Hahnji, mister, you must be patient. Before you can name that corner, our future must become past.

But so far, the invisible line was holding, separating the potential from its realization. Strange, that invisible lines could be so powerful, thought Maneck--strong as brick walls.

Depression is a red herring, said Nariman. I think a lot about the past, it's true. But at my age, the past is more present than the here and now. and there is not much percentage in the future.