A great deal of what is presumed to be intractable or inevitable in this world doesn't strike me that way at all.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Never trust anyone who tells you how people come to trust them.

I'm useless when I meet writers I love - I go slack-jawed and stupid with awe.

In any country, corruption tends to increase when more respectable means of social advancement break down.

Don't correct me, you don't have any rights over me." "What kind of life is this? So I sit at home , entirely dependent on this man, and then it turns out his heart was never with me. How is it possible to force someone to love me?

I tell Allah I love Him immensely, immensely. But I tell Him I cannot be better, because of how the world is.

Everyone in Annawadi talks like this: 'Oh, I will make my child a doctor, a lawyer, and he will make us rich'. It's vanity, nothing more. Your little boat goes west and you congratulate yourself, 'what a navigator I am!' And then the wind blows you east.