“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.”

“It's important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go. Otherwise you are left with words you should have said but never did, and your heart is heavy with remorse." Page 316”

“Another favorite position of his was sitting with his back to me, his rear half resting on the floor of the boat and his front half on the bench, his face buried into the stern, paws right next to his head, looking as if we were playing hide-and-seek and he were the one counting. In this position he tended to lie very still, with only the occasional twitching of his ears to indicate that he is not necessarily sleeping.”

“In a healthy individual, a broken bone that has healed properly is strongest where it was once broken. You have not lost any life, Henry told himself. You will still get your fair share of years. Yet the quality of his life changed. Once you've been struck by violence, you acquire companions that never leave you entirely: Suspicion, Fear, Anxiety, Despair, Joylessness. The natural smile is taken from you and the natural pleasures you once enjoyed lose their appeal.”

“I was weeping because Richard Parker had left me so unceremoniously. What a terrible thing it is to botch a farewell...it's important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go. Otherwise you are left with words you should have said but never did, and your heart is heavy with remorse”

“Oncoming death is terrible enough, but worse still is oncoming death with time to spare, time in which all the happiness that was yours and all the happiness that might have been yours becomes clear to you. You see with utter lucidity all that you are losing.”

“I’ll tell you, that’s one thing I hate about my nickname, the way the number runs on forever. It’s important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go. Otherwise you are left with words you should have said but never did, and your heart is heavy with remorse.”