“Lately you are brooding too much about rights. Give up this dangerous habit.”

“Depression is a red herring," said Nariman. "I think a lot about the past, it's true. But at my age, the past is more present than the here and now. and there is not much percentage in the future.”

“The whole quilt is much more important than any single square. ”

“Oh, Anyone can make a quilt,' she said modestly. 'It's just scraps, from the clothes you've sewn.''Yes, but the talent is in joining the pieces, the way you have.''Look,' Om pointed, 'look at that - the poplin from our very first job.''You remember,' said Dina, pleased. 'And how fast you finished those first dresses. I thought I had two geniuses.''Hungry stomachs were driving our fingers,' chuckled Ishvar.'Then came that yellow calico with orange strips. And what a hard time this young fellow gave me. Fighting and arguing about everything.''Me?Argue?Never.'.........He steeped back, pleased with himself, as though he had elucidated an intricate theorem. 'So that's the rule to remember, the whole quilt is much more important than the square'.”

“What folly made young people, even those in middle age, think they were immortal? How much better, their lives, if they could remember the end. Carrying your death with you every day would make it hard to waste time on unkindness and anger and bitterness, on anything petty. That was the secret: remembering your dying time, in order to keep the stupid and the ugly out of your living time.”

“Make up your mind, yaar, choose one thing.''How can I? I'm just a human being,' he replied”

“After all, our lives are but a sequence of accidents - a clanking chain of chance events. A string of choices, casual or deliberate, which add up to that one big calamity we call life.”