“She might be without country, without nation, but inside her there was still a being that could exist and be free, that could simply say I am without adding a this, or a that, without saying I am Indian, Guyanese, English, or anything else in the world.”
― Sharon Maas, quote from Of Marriageable Age
“As if some little spark in Trixie cognised some little spark in Saroj, and those two bright little sparks leaped in joy and bounced out at each other saying, Hi, here I am! Been missing you all my life. That's the way true friendships begin, those rare friendships as true as gold, that stand the knocks of time.”
― Sharon Maas, quote from Of Marriageable Age
“Good pain is pain that forces you to rise beyond it — then you are stronger than suffering.”
― Sharon Maas, quote from Of Marriageable Age
“He simply could not write a further word. Writer’s block, he thought. It happens to the most brilliant of writers.”
― Sharon Maas, quote from Of Marriageable Age
“Men possess blatant power, but the power of a woman is latent, secret, and more potent by far. It must be tapped like an underground stream, and your trust in it must be absolute.”
― Sharon Maas, quote from Of Marriageable Age
“Don't believe that, dear. Don't ever believe that. Nobody's bad just because of the way they look. It's what's inside a person that counts.' 'But, Ma, what's inside a person? When people look different are they different inside, too?' Ma didn't answer, she was looking at her hands now, kneading a ball of dough. Saroj thought she had forgotten her and so she said, 'Ma?' Ma turned her eyes back to Saroj. 'I'll show you in a moment, dear. I'll just finish making these.' Saroj watched the stack of dhal puris grow into a flat round tower and then Ma said she was finished and covered them with a cloth and washed her hands. Then she opened the cupboard where she kept her spare jars and bottles and took out six jars and placed them on the kitchen counter. 'Do you see these jars, Saroj? Are they all the same?' Saroj shook her head. 'No, Ma.' The glasses were all different. There was a short flat one and a tall thin one and a medium-sized one, and other shapes in between. Some were different colours: green or brown or clear. 'All right. Now, just imagine these jars are people. People with different shapes of bodies and colours of skin. Can you do that?' Saroj nodded. 'Right. Well, now the bodies are empty. But look…’ Ma picked up a big glass jug, filled it at the tap and poured water into all the jars. 'See, Saroj? Now all the glasses are filled. All the bodies are alive! They have what we call a spirit. Now, is that spirit the same in all the glasses, or different?' 'It's the same, Ma. So people are —' But Ma broke in. 'Now, can you run into the pantry and get the tin where I keep my dyes? You know it, don't you?' Saroj was back even before Ma had finished speaking. Ma opened the tin and picked up one of the tiny bottles of powdered dye. It was cherry-coloured. Ma held the bottle over one of the jars and tipped a little of the powder into the water. Immediately, the water turned pink-red. Ma returned the cap to the bottle and picked up another one. The water turned lime-green. She did that six times and each time the water turned a different colour so that in the end Ma had six different shaped jars of six different colours. 'So, Saroj, now you answer me. Are these people here all the same inside, or are they all different?' Saroj took her time before answering. She puckered her brow and thought hard. Finally she said, 'Well, Ma, really they're all the same but the colours make them different.' 'Yes, but what is more real, the sameness or the differences?' Saroj thought hard again. Then she said: 'The sameness, Ma. Because the sameness holds up the differences. The differences are only the powders you put in.' 'Exactly. So think of all these people as having a spirit which is the same in each one, and yet each one is also different — that is because each person has a different personality. A personality is made up of thoughts, and everyone has different kinds of thoughts. Some have loving thoughts, some have angry thoughts, some have sad thoughts, some have mean thoughts. Most people have jumbles of thoughts — but everybody's thoughts are different, and so everybody is different. Different outside and different inside. And they see those differences in each other and they squabble and fight, because everyone thinks the way he is, is right. But if they could see through the differences to the oneness beyond, linking them all, then…’ 'Then what, Ma?' 'Then we would all be so wise, Saroj, and so happy!”
― Sharon Maas, quote from Of Marriageable Age
“Don't you know yet that men are full of words that mean nothing? The silence of a woman is a thousand times weightier. You must learn to trust silence. To load it with truth, and to wait.”
― Sharon Maas, quote from Of Marriageable Age
“She closed her eyes and bowed to the cobra, asking his forgiveness, for they had disturbed him in his kingdom. She faced the cobra and drew the waves of fear and anger into herself, dissolving them, and the cobra, seeing the danger was gone, slid on his way into the undergrowth. When the cobra was gone Mr Baldwin laid a hand on Fiona's upper arm, which was cold from fear and shaking, and David's sunbrowned face looked pale with fright. Only Savitri was unperturbed. She looked up to meet Mr Baldwin's gaze.”
― Sharon Maas, quote from Of Marriageable Age
“you cannot hide from death; you can only reach down inside yourself to find the strength to help you face it.”
― Sharon Maas, quote from Of Marriageable Age
“an inner Saroj. The outer Saroj was the Baba-trained, docile, obedient, soft-spoken, sweet-natured, aloof, dignified, paper-doll shell of an Indian girl who walked, moved, breathed, followed, spoke when she was spoken to, and did what she was told. Beneath that veneer was the real Saroj; the inner one. Beneath the smoke of what-people-thought-she-was, was the fire of the real, squirming, kicking, bull-headed, fighting-to-get-out me, the what-she-really-was. But nobody would have believed it, at least not before the thirteenth birthday that changed everything. The inner Saroj must live. The outer Saroj must die. That much was clear. But how? The inner Saroj, struggling for life, needed a hand to hold on to, and here within her grasp, less than an arm's length away, was the ideal model for the new character that would shape her destiny.”
― Sharon Maas, quote from Of Marriageable Age
“You know, it's just politics, it's a game grown-ups like to play, like we lil' children play with toys.”
― Sharon Maas, quote from Of Marriageable Age
“Nat discovered Woman. He didn't have to marry to do so, for each one was his bride. They offered themselves to him: he could take his choice, and the longing ache within him was stilled, for he found in London a garden of earthly delights. Women here were not rare out-of-reach orchids but a riotous summer-bed of flowers nodding in the sunshine, inviting, pleading to be plucked. They brought fulfilment to his starved senses. He drank their intoxicating nectar, drowned in their overwhelming”
― Sharon Maas, quote from Of Marriageable Age
Sharon Maas
Born place: in Georgetown, Guyana
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“Only one ring remained on his pinky finger. My ring. The ring that I had worn for 500 years. Only then did I notice that his own hands were bare. It was a tiny silver band with a dark, black stone -- onyx. “Never wear onyx unless you want or know death,” he once told me. I believed him. Besides, up until that moment, I was confident no vampire enjoyed creating death more than I did.”
― Rebecca Maizel, quote from Infinite Days
“Yes, of course. But ... how?"
Kat felt her crew around her: Hamish's arm hung around Simon's shoulders; Gabrielle's delicate hands draped through the arms of Angus and Nick. Kat's own hand found Hale's, then, fingers interlacing, palms pressing together so tightly that Kat knew nothing could come between them. Nothing. She looked at him. No one.
"It's easy," Kat said, "when you don't have to do it alone.”
― Ally Carter, quote from Uncommon Criminals
“A feeling of unfathomable loneliness settled upon her.”
― O.E. Rølvaag, quote from Giants in the Earth
“Life is not meant to be an open-book test,”
― Alyson Noel, quote from Everlasting
“In depression this faith in deliverance, in ultimate restoration, is absent. The pain is unrelenting, and what makes the condition intolerable is the foreknowledge that no remedy will come- not in a day, an hour, a month, or a minute. If there is mild relief, one knows that it is only temporary; more pain will follow. It is hopelessness even more than pain that crushes the soul. So the decision-making of daily life involves not, as in normal affairs, shifting from one annoying situation to another less annoying- or from discomfort to relative comfort, or from boredom to activity- but moving from pain to pain. One does not abandon, even briefly, one’s bed of nails, but is attached to it wherever one goes. And this results in a striking experience- one which I have called, borrowing military terminology, the situation of the walking wounded. For in virtually any other serious sickness, a patient who felt similar devistation would by lying flat in bed, possibly sedated and hooked up to the tubes and wires of life-support systems, but at the very least in a posture of repose and in an isolated setting. His invalidism would be necessary, unquestioned and honorably attained. However, the sufferer from depression has no such option and therefore finds himself, like a walking casualty of war, thrust into the most intolerable social and family situations. There he must, despite the anguish devouring his brain, present a face approximating the one that is associated with ordinary events and companionship. He must try to utter small talk, and be responsive to questions, and knowingly nod and frown and, God help him, even smile. But it is a fierce trial attempting to speak a few simple words.”
― William Styron, quote from Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness
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Rita Hayworth and Sh...BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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