Quotessence
Home / Authors / Gregory David Roberts
Gregory David Roberts

Gregory David Roberts Quotes

Author

Filter quotes by topic

AllShantaramGregory David RobertsHeartMenKnowsWayWorldPeopleIfsThinking

Famous Gregory David Roberts Quotes

“The touch was exactly what the touch of a lover's hand should be: familiar, yet exciting as a whispered promise. I felt an almost irresistible urge to take her hand and place it flat against my chest, near my heart. Maybe I should've done it. I know now that she would've laughed, if I'd done it, and she would've liked me for it. But strangers that we were then, we stood for five long seconds and held the stare, while all the parallel worlds, all the parallel lives that might've been, and never would be, whirled around us.”

IfsKnowsWorldShouldHeartLongDoneHandsMightWould BeFeltFiveLoversMy HeartPromiseExcitingStrangerFamiliarStaringUrgesFlatsChestsSecondsLaughedParallelsIrresistibleParallel Lives
Book:Shantaram: A Novel
Create image

“Some loves are like that. Your heart starts to feel like an overcrowded lifeboat. You throw your pride out to keep it afloat, & your self-respect & independence. After a while you start throwing people out - friends, everyone you know. & it's still not enough. The lifeboat is still sinking, & you know it's going to take you down with it. I've seen that happen to a lot of people. I think that's why I'm sick of love. - Karla”

PeopleThinkingKnowsFeelsHeartStillsSelfEnoughHappensPrideSickIndependenceSelf RespectThrowingShantaramSinkingLifeboats
Author:Gregory David Roberts
Create image

“A wise man once told me- he’s a muslim by the way- that he has more in common with a jew than he does a fanatic of his own religion. He has more in common with a rational, reasonable-minded Christian or a Buddhist or Hindu than he does with a fanatic of his own religion. In fact, he has more in common with a ration, reasonable-minded atheist than he does with a fanatic of his own religion”

MenWayDoeFactsChristianCommonWiseAtheistJewRationalBuddhistReasonableFanaticsRations
Author:Gregory David Roberts
Create image

“But in a way you can say that after leaving the sea, after all those millions of years of living inside of the sea, we took the ocean with us. When a woman makes a baby, she gives it water, inside her body, to grow in. That water inside her body is almost exactly the same as the water of the sea. It is salty, by just the same amount. She makes a little ocean, in her body. And not only this. Our blood and our sweating, they are both salty, almost exactly like the water from the sea is salty. We carry oceans inside of us, in our blood and our sweat. And we are crying the oceans, in our tears.”

WayGivingYearsLittlesBodyGrowsWaterMillionsBloodSeaCryTearsBabyAmountOceanLeavingSweatSweatingSalty
Book:Shantaram: A Novel
Create image

“There's a truth deeper than experience. It's beyond what we see, or even what we feel. It's an order of truth that separates the profound from the merely clever, and the reality from the perception. We're helpless, usually, in the face of it; and the cost of knowing it, like the cost of knowing love, is sometimes greater than any heart would willingly pay. It doesn't always help us to love the world, but it does prevent us from hating the world. And the only way to know that truth is to share it, from heart to heart, just as Prabhakar told it to me, just as I'm telling it to you now.”

KnowsWorldWayFeelsHeartDoeSometimesHelpingRealityFacesHateOrderLove IsPayKnowingGreaterShareTruth IsCostPerceptionProfoundDeeperCleverHelplessShantaramHeart To HeartKnowing Love
Author:Gregory David Roberts
Create image

“Nothing in the world is so soft and pleasing to the touch, as the skin of a woman's thigh. No flower, feather or fabric, can match that velvet whisper of flesh. No matter how unequal they may be in any other ways, all women, old and young, fat and thin, beautiful and ugly, have that perfection. It's a great part of the reason why men hunger to possess women, and so often convince themselves that they do possess them: the thigh, that touch.”

MenWorldWayMayMatterReasonBeautifulYoungFlowerPerfectionSkinsHungerUglyFleshFatsReason WhyConvinceFabricFeathersShantaramThighsVelvet
Author:Gregory David Roberts
Create image

“I think the future is like anything else that's important. It has to be earned. If we don't earn it, we don't have a future at all. And if we don't earn it, we don't deserve it, we have to live in the present, more or less forever. Or worse, we have to live in the past. I think that's probably what love is - a way of earning the future.”

IfsThinkingWayImportantPastLove IsForeverDeserveEarningShantaramLive In The Present
Book:Shantaram: A Novel
Create image

“I think that it is a part of growing up, learning to control our suffering. I think that when we grow up, and learn that happiness is rare, and passes quickly, we become disillusioned and hurt. And how much we suffer is a mark of how much we have been hurt by this realisation. Suffering, you see, is a kind of anger. We rage against the unfairness, the injustice of our sad and sorry lot.”

ThinkingKindHas BeensSufferingGrowsHurtGrowing UpGrowingMarkSorryInjusticeRageRealisationUnfairnessDisillusionedBeen Hurt
Book:Shantaram: A Novel
Create image

“I know now that when the loving, honest moment comes it should be seized, and spoken, because it may never come again. And unvoiced, unmoving, unlived in the things we declare form heart to heart, those true and real feelings wither and crumble in the remembering hand that tries too late to reach for them.”

KnowsShouldTryingHeartMayRealMomentsFeelingsHandsRememberFormHonestLateToo LateHeart To HeartReal Feelings
Book:Shantaram: A Novel
Create image