“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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“- Dažbrīd cilvēks pavisam aizmirst, ka viņš dzīvo.
- Es gan to arvien apzinos. Tikai nezinu lāgā, ko ar to iesākt.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, quote from A Time to Love and a Time to Die
“The tight, throbbing feeling in my throat made me want to start sobbing, to break down, right there on an unfamiliar corner in front of a house just like my own. Everything seemed so out of control, as if even running the streets wouldn’t save me. I wondered if this was how she felt running wild at night, this lost, loose feeling that no consequence could be so harmful as the sense of staying where you were, or of being who you are. I wanted to be somewhere else, out of the range of my mother’s voice and ears, of Ashley’s pouty looks, of the News Channel 5 viewing area. A place where the sight of my sobbing would tie me to no one and no one to me.”
― Sarah Dessen, quote from That Summer
“The first sheet was an analysis of the problems that Armored was facing. The integrated units, the loss of prestige. The possibility of ceding command to others. It was gloomy, but it was conventional. And it was accurate, according to the Chief of Staff.”
― Lee Child, quote from The Enemy
“لا الأشياء ولا الوقائع الحقيقية هي التي تفصل بين سعادتنا وتعاستنا، إنما هي التصورات التي يقدمها لنا وعينا المتأرجح وحسب. وكل يوم تتبين إلى أي حد تلك التصوارت خاعة وكاذبة، إن سعادتنا لا ترتكز على شيء راسخ. وكم لنا من شكاوى لا مبرر لها غالباً، وأين الغرابة في ألا يكترث الحكيم بالسعادة أو بالشكوى ... وأن يكون الأجلاف الحمقى وحدهم من يمكنهم التمتع بالسعادة ص 323”
― Vladimir Bartol, quote from Alamut
“Her lips pursed. My palms went damp. Her fangs were out, as pointed and delicate as little bone daggers. "That’s disappointing, Solange."
I was going to die because I couldn’t embroider roses on a pillow.”
― Alyxandra Harvey, quote from My Love Lies Bleeding
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