Taruna

“He believed books had an aura that protected him, that without one beside him he would die. He happily slept without women. He never slept without a book.”
― Richard Flanagan, The Narrow Road to the Deep North

“They had always fitted together like pieces of an unsolved (and perhaps unsolvable) puzzle- the smoke of her into the solidness of him, the solitariness of her into the gathering of him, the strangeness of her into the straightforwardness of him, the insouciance of her into the restraint of him. The quietness of her into the quietness of him.”
― Arundhati Roy, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

“A good book ... leaves you wanting to reread the book. A great book compels you to reread your own soul.”
― Richard Flanagan, The Narrow Road to the Deep North

“Normality in our part of the world is a bit like a boiled egg: its humdrum surface conceals at its heart a yolk of egregious violence. It is our constant anxiety about that violence, our memory of its past labours and our dread of its future manifestations, that lays down the rules for how a people as complex and as diverse as we continue to coexist – continue to live together, tolerate each other and, from time to time, murder one another. As long as the centre holds, as long as the yolk doesn’t run, we’ll be fine. In moments of crisis it helps to take the long view.”
― Arundhati Roy, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness