“Writers are in many ways like demi-gods. With one stroke of a pen they can give life to a character, or strike them from existence, with nary a twinge of grief at their passing.”

“I thought: hope cannot be said to exist, nor can it be said not to exist. It is just like roads across the earth. For actually the earth had no roads to begin with, but when many men pass one way, a road is made.”

“Oh, the torment bred in the race, the grinding scream of deathand the stroke that hits the vein,the hemorrhage none can staunch, the grief,the curse no man can bear.But there is a cure in the house, and not outside it, no,not from others but from them,their bloody strife. We sing to you,dark gods beneath the earth.Now hear, you blissful powers underground --answer the call, send help.Bless the children, give them triumph now.”

“And only the enlightened can recall their former lives; for the rest of us, the memories of past existences are but glints of light, twinges of longing, passing shadows, disturbingly familiar, that are gone before they can be grasped, like the passage of that silver bird on Dhaulagiri.”

“Sometimes, when tragedy strikes, people give up hope that they can expect anything more from life, when the real quest is finding out what life expects from them.”

“And the only sign of life is the ticking of the pen, introducing characters to memory like old friends.”