Girls have to be toughened so they can survive a world that presses harder on women.

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

Love comes like lightning, and disappears the same way. If you are lucky, it strikes you right. If not, you'll spend your life yearning for a man you can't have.

The dream is not a drug but a way. Listen to where it can take you.

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.

Sometimes -- she knows this from her own life -- to get to the other side, you must travel through grief. No detours are possible.

I tried to hold on to this compassion, sensing its preciousness, but even as I reached to grasp it, it dissipated into wisps. No revelation can endure unless it is bolstered by a calm pure mind- and I'm afraid I didn't possess that.