Remembering bred its own peculiar sorrow. It seemed so unfair: that time should render both sadness and happiness into a source of pain.

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

All fiction relies on the real world in the sense that we all take in the world through our five senses and we accumulate details, consciously or subconsciously. This accumulation of detail can be drawn on when you write fiction.

If time were a bolt of cloth,” said Om, “I would cut out all the bad parts. Snip out the scary nights and stitch together the good parts, to make time bearable. Then I could wear it like a coat, always live happily.

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

Children don't make judgments about which details are important... a child captures them all.

Money can buy the necessary police order. Justice is sold to the highest bidder