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Gregory David Roberts

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Famous Gregory David Roberts Quotes

“The tears, when they come to some men, are worse than beatings. They're wounded worse by sobbing, men like that, than they are by boots and batons. Tears begin in the heart, but some of us deny the heart so often, and for so long, that when it speaks we hear not one but a hundred sorrows in the heartbreak. We know that crying is a good and natural thing. We know that crying isn't a weakness, but a kind of strength. Still, the weeping rips us root by tangled root from the earth, and we crash like fallen trees when we cry.”

KnowsMenHeartKindLongStillsEarthSpeakNaturalTreeCryTearsSorrowWeaknessHundredRootsDenyFallenBootsCrashWoundedRipWeepingShantaramTangledNatural ThingsSobbingBatonFallen Trees
Book:Shantaram: A Novel
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“The only victory that really counts in prison is survival. But survival means more than simply being alive. It's not just the body that must survive a jail term; the spirit and the will and the heart have to make it through as well. If any one of them is broken or destroyed, the man whose living body walks through the gate, at the end of his sentence, can't be said to have survived it. And it's for those small victories of the heart, and the spirit, and the will that we sometimes risk the body that cradles them.”

IfsMenWellsHeartMeanSaidEndsSometimesBodySpiritTermWalksAliveRiskHe ManBrokenVictorySurvivalPrisonSentencesDestroyedGatesJailSurvivedCradleSmall Victories
Author:Gregory David Roberts
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“at first, when we truly love someone, our greatest fear is that the loved one will stop loving us. what we should fear and dread, of course, is that we wont stop loving them, even after they are dead and gone. for i still love you with the whole of my heart. i still love you. and sometimes, my friend, the love that i have and cant give to you, crushed the breast from my chest. soemtimes, even now, my heart is drowning in a sorrow that has no stars without you, and no laughter, and no sleep.”

GivingShouldFirstsHeartStillsSometimesWholeCoursesStarsSleepGoneLove YouMy HeartSorrowLaughterMy FriendsBreastsChestsLoved OnesDreadCantDrowningLove SomeoneWithout YouCrushedGreatest FearStill Love YouNo SleepOur Greatest FearI Still Love You
Book:Shantaram: A Novel
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“The truth is that there are no good men, or bad men,' he said. 'It is the deeds that have goodness or badness in them. There are good deeds, and bad deeds. Men are just men - it is what they do, or refuse to do, that links them to good and evil. The truth is that an instant of real love, in the heart of anyone - the noblest man alive or the most wicked - has the whole purpose and process and meaning of life within the lotus-folds of its passion. The truth is that we are all, every one of us, every atom, every galaxy, and every particle of matter in the universe, moving toward God.”

MenHeartSaidRealMatterWholeMovingPurposeUniversePassionEvilProcessAliveTruth IsGoodnessRefuseDeedsInstantMeaning Of LifeWickedGood And EvilGood ManLinksAtomsReal LoveGalaxyGood DeedsParticlesFoldsShantaramBad ManBadnessLotusesNo Good Men
Book:Shantaram: A Novel
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“Sooner or later, fate puts us together with all the people, one by one, who show us what we could, and shouldn’t, let ourselves become. Sooner or later we meet the drunkard, the waster, the betrayer, the ruthless mind, and the hate-filled heart. But fate loads the dice, of course, because we usually find ourselves loving or pitying almost all of those people. And it’s impossible to despise someone you honestly pity, and to shun someone you truly love.”

PeopleMindHeartShowsTogetherHateCoursesFateImpossibleFilledHonestlyPityDespiseLoadSooner Or LaterRuthlessShantaramDiceDrunkards
Author:Gregory David Roberts
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“you can't kill love. you can't even kill it with hate. you can kill in-love, and loving, and even loveliness. you can kill them all, or numb them into dense, leaden regret, but you can't kill love itself. love is the passionate search for a truth other than your own; and once you feel it, honestly and completely, love is forever. every act of love, every moment of the heart reaching out, is a part of the universal good: it's a part of God, or what we call God, and it can never die.”

FeelsHeartMomentsHateDiesLove IsForeverLove YouRegretUniversalPassionateHonestlyReachingReach OutHate YouShantaramNumbDenseLovelinessActs Of Love
Author:Gregory David Roberts
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“For this is what we do. Put one foot forward and then the other. Lift our eyes to the snarl and smile of the world once more. Think. Act. Feel. Add our little consequence to the tides of good and evil that flood and drain the world. Drag our shadowed crosses into the hope of another night. Push our brave hearts into the promise of a new day. With love; the passionate search for truth other than our own. With longing; the pure, ineffable yearning to be saved. For so long as fate keeps waiting, we live on.”

ThinkingWorldFeelsHeartLittlesLongEyeNightEvilWaitingFateFeetPromisePureConsequenceCrossesLongingAddBravePassionateSavedLiftsGood And EvilYearningTidesDragFloodNew DayShantaramDrainsSearch For TruthIneffableBrave Heart
Author:Gregory David Roberts
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“Indians are the Italians of Asia and vice versa. 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 the music inside the body and music is the food inside the heart. Amore or Pyar makes every man a poet, a princess of peasant girl if only for second eyes of man and woman meets.”

IfsMenHeartCountryBodyEyeGirlWalksPoetMusic IsMen And WomenVicesCornersSingersEvery ManIndianDancerShopsPrincessAsiaPeasantsShantaramVice Versa
Author:Gregory David Roberts
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“There's a kind of luck that's not much more than being in the right place at the right time, a kind of inspiration that's not much more than doing the right thing in the right way, and both only really happen to you when you empty your heart of ambition, purpose, and plan; when you give yourself, completely, to the golden, fate-filled moment.”

WayGivingHeartKindMomentsInspirationHappensPurposeFatePlansAmbitionEmptyLuckFilledGoldenRight ThingRight WayRight TimeShantaramRight PlaceDoing The Right Thing
Book:Shantaram: A Novel
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“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
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“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
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“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
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“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
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