“Mockery be damned, my urine looked delicious.”

“So, Swami Jesus, will you go on the hajj this year?" Ravi said, bringing the palms of his handstogether in front of his face in a reverent namaskar. "Does Mecca beckon?" He crossed himself. "Orwill it be to Rome for your coronation as the next Pope Pius?" He drew in the air a Greek letter,making clear the spelling of his Mockery. "Have you found time yet to get the end of your peckercut off and become a Jew? At the rate you're going, if you go to temple on Thursday, mosque onFriday, synagogue on Saturday and church on Sunday, you only need to convert to three morereligions to be on holiday for the rest of your life.”

“I've never forgotten him. Dare I say I miss him? I do. I miss him. I still see him in my dreams. They are nightmares mostly, but nightmares tinged with love. Such is the strangeness of the human heart. I still cannot understand how he could abandon me so unceremoniously, without any sort of goodbye, without looking back even once. The pain is like an axe that chops my heart. ”

“I had to stop hoping so much that a ship would rescue me. I should not count on outside help. Survival had to start with me. In my experience, a castaway’s worst mistake is to hope too much and to do too little. Survival starts by paying attention to what is close at hand and immediate. To look out with idle hope is tantamount to dreaming one’s life away.”

“Bapu Ghandi said, "All religions are true." I just want to love God, " I blurted out, and looked down, red in the face. My embarassment was contagious. No one said anything. It happened that we were not far from the statue of Gandhi on the esplanade. Stick in hand, an impish smile on his lips, a twinkle in his eyes, the Mahatma walked. I fancy that he heard our conversation, but that he paid even greater attention to my heart, Father cleared his throat and said in a half-voice, " I suppose that's what wer're all trying to do - love God.”

“My alarm clock during my childhood was a pride of lions.”

“In my youth, it was my good luck to have a few good teachers, men and women, who came into my head and lit a match.”