“And you spend your day going around from the house of the washerman to the house of the sweeper, asking about this one's son and that one's nephew, but spending no time with your own family. It is no secret that many people here think that you are a communist.'Rasheed reflected that this probably meant only that he loathed the poverty and injustice endemic to the village, and that he made no particular secret of it.”

“I've always felt that the performance of a raag resembles a novel - or at least the kind of novel I'm attempting to write. You know,' he continued, extemporizing as he went along, 'first you take one note and explore it for a while, then another to discover its possibilities, then perhaps you get to the dominant, and pause for a bit, and it's only gradually that the phrases begin to form and the tabla joins in with the beat...and then the more brilliant improvisations and diversions begin, with the main theme returning from time to time, and finally it all speeds up, and the excitement increases to a climax.”

“Music, such music, is a sufficient gift. Why ask for happiness; why hope not to grieve? It is enough, it is to be blessed enough, to live from day to day and to hear such music-not too much, or the soul could not sustain it-from time to time.”

“A Word Of ThanksTo these I know a debt past telling:My several muses, harsh and kind;My folks, who stood my sulks and yelling,And (in the long run) did not mind;Dead legislators, whose orationsI've filched to mix my own potations;Indeed, all those whose brains I've pressed,Unmerciful, because obsessed;My own dumb soul, which on a pittanceSurvived to weave this fictive spell;And, gentle reader, you as well,The fountainhead of all remittance.Buy me before good sense insistsYou'll strain your purse and sprain your wrists.”

“It's not the godsBut our own heartsWe need to fear. The evil starts Against all oddsNot there but here.”

“What is the difference between my life and my love? One gets me low, the other lets me go.”

“Of course, the greater one's need, the greater one's propensity to be mesmerized.”