It was a good place for getting lost in, a city no one ever knew, a city explored from the neutral heart outward, until after many years, it defined itself into a jumble of clearings separated by stretches of the unknown, through which the narrowest of paths had been cut.

We made no inquiries about India or about the families people had left behind. When our ways of thinking had changed, and we wished to know, it was too late. I know nothing of the people on my father's side; I know only that some of them came from Nepal

You need someone to see what you've done, to read it and to understand it and to appreciate what's gone into it.

Judgment is contained in the act of trying to understand.

Most people are not really free. They are confined by the niche in the world that they carve out for themselves. They limit themselves to fewer possibilities by the narrowness of their vision.

If you write a novel alone you sit and you weave a little narrative. And it's O.K., but it's of no account.

His ignorance seemed to widen with everything he read.