Gregory David Roberts Quotes

“But sometimes, being silent is the only way to tell the truth.”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

“I'd always thought that fate was something unchangeable: fixed for every one of us at birth, and as constant as the circuit of the stars. But I suddenly realised that life is stranger and more beautiful than that. The truth is that, no matter what kind of game you find yourself in, no matter how good or bad the luck, you can change your life completely with a single thought or a single act of love.”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

“She'd confused honour with virtue. Virtue is concerned with what we do, and honour is concerned with how we do it. You can fight a war in an honorable way—the Geneva Convention exists for that very reason—and you can enforce the peace without any honor at all. In its essence, honour is the art of being humble. And gangsters, just like cops, politicians, soldiers, and holy men, are only ever good at what they do if they stay humble.”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

“it's better to die fighting than to die like a rat in a trap.”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

“The hosts—our bodies—and the viruses—any bug that makes us sick—are locked in a competition with each other. When the parasite attacks, the host develops a defence. Then the virus changes to beat that defence, so the host gets a new defence. And that keeps on going. They call it a Red Queen Contest. It's from the story, you know, Alice in Wonderland.”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

“The only thing we can do is choose a side, and fight. That is the only choice we get—who we fight for, who we fight against. That is life.”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

“Every human heartbeat, he'd said many times, is a universe of possibilities.”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

“...the more that I tried to ignore it, the more agonizing it felt.”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

“The path was so narrow, and the drop so steep, that I was sure I would fall if I released my grip.”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

“The monster fills the eye and the mind, and for a second or two there seems to be nothing else in the world but the metal and the noise and the terror.”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

“If so much love could vanish into the earth and speak no more, smile no more, then love was nothing.”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

“Hunger exaggerated the cold. It was a long, hard winter, with snow falling on the mountains around us every other day.”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

“There were many, so many men and women, beginning with my own mother, whose courage and sacrifice inspired the memory of them.”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

“Some time on the next day we would be free, or we would be dead.”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

“Dawn put fire in the sky.”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

“...we spoke to none but the few we trusted with our wounded lives.”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

“Glory belongs to God, of course; that's what the world really means. And you can't serve God with a gun.”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

“...it was the source of a constant and almost unbearable pain.”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

“I'd burned all the bridges that might've led me home.”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

“...assassin grief, he'd once called it: the kind of grief that lies in wait and attacks from ambush, with no warning and no mercy. I know now that assassin grief can hide for years and the strike suddenly, on the happiest day, without discernible reason or exegesis.”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

“...assassin grief, he'd once called it: the kind of grief that lies in wait and attacks from ambush, with no warning and no mercy. I know now that assassin grief can hide for years and then strike suddenly, on the happiest day, without discernible reason or exegesis.”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

“I couldn't understand the dark and trembling mood that was moving in me, swelling to the sorrow I'd too long denied, I couldn't understand it, so I tried to fight it as a man fights pain or despair. But you can't bite down on assassin grief, and will it away. The enemy stalks you, step for step, and knows your every move before you make it. The enemy is your own grieving heart and, when it strikes, it can't miss.”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

“But I couldn't cry them, those tears, and I felt that I was drowning in a sorrow that was bigger than the heart that tried to hold it.”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

“Signing off now, but keeping the line open, as always, I'll say Amen.”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

“...my heart put a wishing star in my eyes for them.”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

“As we walked, it occurred to me that the slum had been strangely devoid of pariah dogs. I noticed that there were none visible anywhere on the streets.”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

“The only power that has any real meaning is the power to better the world.”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

“St. Martin's Press, whose erudition, urbanity, and love for the world of the word are an artist's inspiration.”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

“...who was always the first to read the words, and to speak love for them; and my mother and my stepfather, whose unflagging moral, spiritual, and financial support—beyond what I've ever deserved or could repay—has sustained me, and uplifted this work.”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

“I like you but I feel like killing you at the same time. That's a peculiar talent you've got.”
― Gregory David Roberts, The Mountain Shadow