All great artists know that part of their task is to light up the distance between two human beings.

The West wants unconditional love; failing that, unconditional surrender.

She thought of the boy thrown into the cauldron of war, the girl beset by various bigotries, her life in danger, and saw how unjust it all was, her fury limitless for a few moments. And she felt a sense of shame, something akin to accusation from them towards her and her generation, for not having constructed a better world to welcome and contain their beauty, to house their spirit. –.

When a coin is minted, the devil kisses it.

In some respects, grief for the lost and missing is worse than grief for the dead, and sometimes just for a fraction of a second its intensity makes her wish Mikal would cease to exist, so she wouldn’t have to wonder if she will ever see him again.

He would drift through the house in search of the coolest spot to read through the long summer afternoons that had a touch of eternity to them, altering the arrangement of his limbs as much for comfort as for the fear that his undisturbed shadow would leave a stain on the wall.

Wolves exhibiting strange behaviour – caught in traps and thrashing about, injured by other creatures or by bullets, pups suffering from epilepsy – are attacked and killed by their pack members. But here everyone is human and must try to understand each other’s mystery. Each other’s pain.

All those who love know exactly the limit they’re prepared to go to. They know exactly what is required.

On the journey towards the beloved, you live by dying at every step.

Shamas stands in the open door and watches the earth, the magnet that it is, pulling snowflakes out of the sky towards itself.