“I really worry about these political people that have no personal life. If there's nothing that's lovely, and if there's nothing that's just ephemeral, that you can just lie on the floor and bust a gut laughing at, then what's the point?”

“The trouble is that once you see it, you can't unsee it. And once you've seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing, becomes as political an act as speaking out. There's no innocence. Either way, you're accountable.”

“That's what careless words do. They make people love you a little less.”

“When you hurt people, they begin to love you less. That's what careless words do. They make people love you a little less.”

“There's really no such thing as the 'voiceless'. There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.”

“Must we behave like some damn godforsaken tribe that's just been discovered?”

“Ammu loved her children (of course), but their wide-eyed vulnerability and their willingness to love people who didn't really love them exasperated her and sometimes made her want to hurt them-- just as an education, a precaution.”