“When he died, I went about like a ragged crow telling strangers, "My father died, my father died." My indiscretion embarrassed me, but I could not help it. Without my father on his Delhi rooftop, why was I here? Without him there, why should I go back? Without that ache between us, what was I made of?”

“A man wasn't equal to an animal, not one particle of him. Human life was stinking corrupt, and meanwhile there were beautiful creatures who lived with delicacy on the earth without doing anyone harm. "We should be dying." the judge almost wept.”

“He seemed unaware of what was going on, stared out without hope or ambition, without worry, developing a quality devoid of qualities to get him through this life.”

“But the child shouldn't be blamed for the father's crime, she tried to reason with herself, then. But should the child therefore also enjoy the father's illicit gain?”

“Jemu watched his father disappear. He didn't throw the coconut and he didn't cry. Never again would he know love for another human being that wasn't adulterated by another, contradictory emotion.”

“The judge got down on his knees, and he prayed to God, he, Jemubhai Popatlal the agnostic, who had made a long hard journey to jettison his family’s prayers; he who had refused to throw the coconut into the water and bless his own voyage all those years ago on the deck of the SS Strath-naver."If you return Mutt, I will acknowledge you in public, I will never deny you again, I will tell the world that I believe in you – you – if you return Mutt – "Then he got up. He was undoing his education, retreating to the superstitious man making bargains, offering sacrifices, gambling with fate, cajoling, daring whatever was out there -Show me if you exist!Or else I will know you are nothing.Nothing! Nothing! – taunting it.”

“The fact was that one was left empty-handed. There was no system to soothe the unfairness of things; justice was without scope; it might snag the stealer of chickens, but great evasive crimes would have to be dismissed because, if identified and netted, they would bring down the entire structure of so-called civilization. For crimes that took place in the monstrous dealings between nations, for crimes that took place in those intimate spaces between two people without a witness...”