“Chacko marvelled at how someone so small and undefined, so vague in her resemblances,could so completely command the attention, the love, the sanity, of a grown man.”

“He held her as though she was a gift. Given to him in love. Something still and small. Unbearably precious.”

“Rahel thought of the someone who had taken the trouble to go up there with cans of paint, white for the clouds, blue for the sky, silver for the jets, and brushes, and thinner.”

“A fee clarified things. Disjuncted sex from love. Needs from feelings.”

“The strange thing about Roman soldiers in the comics was the amount of trouble they took over their armor and their helmets, and then, after all that, they left their legs bare. It didn't make any sense at all. Weatherwise or otherwise.”

“History was like an old house at night. With all the lamps lit. And ancestor whispering inside. To understand history, we have to go inside and listen to what they're saying. And look at the books and the pictures on the wall. And smell the smells.”

“When she looked at herself in her wedding photographs, Ammu felt the woman that looked back at her was someone else. A foolish jewelled bride. Her silk sunset-coloured sari shot with gold. Rings on every finger. White dots of sandalwood paste over her arched eye-brows. Looking at herself like this, Ammu's soft mouth would twist into a small, bitter smile at the memory - not of the wedding itself so much as the fact that she had permitted herself to be so painstakingly decorated before being led to the gallows. It seemed so absurd. So futile. Like polishing firewood.”