4 Quotes by Deepa Anappara

Just because you read books doesn't mean you know everything," Faiz tells her. "I work. Life's the best teacher. Everyone says so." "Only people who can't read say such things," Pari says.

Believe me," the badshah says, "today or tomorrow, every one of us will lose someone close to us, someone we love. The lucky ones are those who can grow old pretending they have some control over their lives, but even they will realize at some point that everything is uncertain, bound to disappear forever. We are just specks of dust in this world, glimmering for a moment in the sunlight, and then disappearing into nothing. You have to learn to make your peace with that.

I like to spy on other families that are sad like ours because I want to find out if they are doing anything different to stop ghosts from clutching their bones.

Ma said Bahadur's ma was unlucky in marriage but was lucky in work, and that everyone had something going right and wrong in their lives--their good or bad children, kind or cruel neighbors, or an ache in the bones that a doctor could cure easily or not at all--and this was how you knew the gods at least tried to be fair.