Aabha Sharma

“She believed in God; and the gods. It was the same thing, logic didn’t come into it. You just believed, you did puja to the idols, you asked them for favours and guidance. Occasionally you visited a temple or got hold of a Brahmin to perform certain rituals. You went to a guru and sat at his feet. All that embedded you in a way of being called Hinduism. You”
― M.G. Vassanji, A Delhi Obsession: A Novel

“Absolutely without stories of any kind! I lived, as they say, on my own, that is, absolutely alone – alone, completely alone – do you understand what it means to be alone?’ ‘But what do you mean by alone? Do you mean you never see anyone?’ ‘Oh, no, of course I see people, but nevertheless I am alone.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, White Nights

“But we simply must get home. Dinner will be waiting for us,’ said Mme Hennebeau, quite beside herself and maddened by fear. ‘On top of everything these beastly workers have chosen the very day that I am entertaining guests. Really! And then they expect to be treated better!”
― Émile Zola, Germinal

“Would you have abandoned a girl who came to you on her own, would you have thrown in her face a shameless jeer at her weak, foolish heart? Would you have looked after her? Would you have understood that she was all alone, that she didn’t know how to take care of herself, that she didn’t know how to protect herself from loving you, that it wasn’t her fault, that, finally, it wasn’t her fault … that she had done nothing! … Oh, my God, my God! …”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, White Nights