Quotessence
Home / Books / Shantaram

Shantaram

Book by Gregory David Roberts · 50 quotes · Shantaram, Gregory David Roberts, Love

Filter quotes by topic

AllShantaramGregory David RobertsLovePeoplePhilosophyColourDestinyFateHateHeartKarlaKnowsLifeMenMomentsMumbaiSorrowSufferingUniverseWay

Shantaram Quotes

“The ancient Sanskrit legends speak of a destined love, a karmic connection between souls that are fated to meet and collide and enrapture one another. The legends say that the loved one is instantly recognized because she's loved in every gesture, every expression of thought, every movement, every sound, and every mood that prays in her eyes. The legends say that we know her by her wings—the wings that only we can see—and because wanting her kills every other desire of love.”

ShantaramGregory David Roberts
Book:Shantaram
Create image

“I never stopped writing. It was what I did, no matter where I was or how my circumstances changed. One of the reasons I remember those early Bombay months so well is that, whenever I was alone, I wrote about those new friends and the conversations we shared. And writing was one of the things that saved me: the discipline and abstraction of putting my life into words, every day, helped me to cope with shame and its first cousin, despair.”

ShantaramGregory David Roberts
Book:Shantaram
Create image

“Я люблю тебя с той самой секунды, когда впервые увидел тебя. Мне кажется, я всегда любил тебя – столько, сколько существует на свете любовь. Я люблю твой голос. Я люблю твое лицо. Я люблю твои руки. Я люблю все, что ты делаешь, и то, как ты это делаешь. Когда ты прикасаешься ко мне, мне кажется, что это волшебная палочка. Я люблю следить за тем, как ты думаешь, и слушать то, что ты говоришь. Я чувствую все это, но не понимаю и не могу объяснить – ни тебе, ни себе. Я просто люблю тебя, люблю всем сердцем. Ты выполняешь миссию Бога: придаешь смысл моей жизни. И потому мне есть за что любить этот мир.”

PeopleLoveLifeShantaram
Book:Shantaram
Create image

“Probabilmente la nostra vita è iniziata nell'oceano. Circa quattro milioni di anni fa. Probabilmente vicino a fonti di calore come i vulcani sommersi. Poi, cinquecento milioni di anni fa, o forse poco più, gli organismi hanno cominciato a vivere anche sulla terra. [...] Ma in un certo senso si può dire che anche se abbiamo abbandonato il mare dopo milioni d'anni di vita nelle sue profondità, l'oceano è rimasto dentro di noi. Quando una donna porta in grembo un bambino, lo fa crescere nell'acqua, e l'acqua nel suo corpo è quasi identica a quella del mare, contiene quasi la stessa quantità di sali. La donna crea un piccolo oceano nel proprio corpo. Ma non solo. Il nostro sangue e il sudore hanno quasi la stessa composizione dell'acqua di mare. Portiamo oceani dentro di noi, nel nostro sangue e nel nostro sudore. E con le nostre lacrime, piangiamo oceani. (Shantaram, pag. 465)”

VitaFilosofiaOceano
Book:Shantaram
Create image

“The Indians are the Italians of Asia", Didier pronounced with a sage and mischievous grin. "It can be said, certainly, with equal justice, that the Italians are the Indians of Europe, but you do understand me, I think. There is so much Italian in the Indians, and so much Indians in the Italians. They are both people of the Madonna - they demand a goddess, even if the religion does not provide one. Every man in both countries is a singer when he is happy, and every woman is a dancer when she walks to the shop at the corner. For them, food is music inside the body, and music is food inside the heart. The Language of India and the language of Italy, they make every man a poet, and make something beautiful from every banalite. They are nations where love - amore, pyaar - makes a cavalier of a Borsalino on a street corner, and makes a princess of a peasant girl, if only for the second that her eyes meet yours.”

LoveIndiansItaliansPyaar
Book:Shantaram
Create image

“Mumbai is the sweet, sweaty smell of hope, which is the opposite of hate; and it's the sour, stifled smell of greed, which is the opposite of love. It's the smell of Gods, demons, empires, and civilizations in resurrection and decay. Its the blue skin-smell of the sea, no matter where you are in the island city, and the blood metal smell of machines. It smells of the stir and sleep and the waste of sixty million animals, more than half of them humans and rats. It smells of heartbreak, and the struggle to live, and of the crucial failures and love that produces courage. It smells of ten thousand restaurants, five thousand temples, shrines, churches and mosques, and of hunderd bazaar devoted exclusively to perfume, spices, incense, and freshly cut flowers. That smell, above all things - is that what welcomes me and tells me that I have come home. Then there were people. Assamese, Jats, and Punjabis; people from Rajasthan, Bengal, and Tamil Nadu; from Pushkar, Cochin, and Konark; warrior caste, Brahmin, and untouchable; Hindi, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Jain, Parsee, Animist; fair skin and dark, green eyes and golden brown and black; every different face and form of that extravagant variety, that incoparable beauty, India.”

LoveBeautifulHateHopeSleepSweetHumanAwakeColourSweatCityShantaramEmpireMumbaiSmell Sea
Book:Shantaram
Create image