“Respect was one thing. Survival was another. It was important that I kept my priorities in the right order.”
― Tahir Shah, quote from Sorcerer's Apprentice
“A journey of observation must leave as much as possible to chance. Random movement is the best plan for maximum observation”
― Tahir Shah, quote from Sorcerer's Apprentice
“An intelligent enemy,' he would say, stroking his beard as if it were a bristly pet, 'rather than a foolish friend.' Or, 'He learnt the language of pigeons, and forgot his own.' Or, the favourite of Jan Fishan Khan: 'Nothing is what it seems.”
― Tahir Shah, quote from Sorcerer's Apprentice
“Calcutta's the only city I know where you are actively encouraged to stop strangers at random for a quick chat.”
― Tahir Shah, quote from Sorcerer's Apprentice
“There is nothing quite as unpleasant as wearing a pair of briefs which have been trailed through a Calcutta courtyard. Nothing, that is, except having one's elbows and knees lacerated by unseen slivers of glass and discarded razor blades.”
― Tahir Shah, quote from Sorcerer's Apprentice
“Where does one go in a tremendous city like Calcutta to find insider information? I recalled India's golden rule: do the opposite of what would be normal anywhere else.”
― Tahir Shah, quote from Sorcerer's Apprentice
“What came next was a new experience for for both the fish and me”
― Tahir Shah, quote from Sorcerer's Apprentice
“The mere mention of the Farakka Express, which jerks its way eastward each day from Delhi to Calcutta, is enough to throw even a seasoned traveller into fits of apoplexy. At a desert encampment on Namibia's Skeleton Coast, a hard-bitten adventurer had downed a peg of local fire-water then told me the tale. Farakka was a ghost train, he said, haunted by ghouls, Thuggees, and thieves. Only a passenger with a death wish would go anywhere near it.”
― Tahir Shah, quote from Sorcerer's Apprentice
“The pursuit of illusion is not about studying for prizes, or for study's sake. There's no right or wrong, no pass or fail.”
― Tahir Shah, quote from Sorcerer's Apprentice
“Calcutta has spectacular over-employment. In the West, where we're obsessed with slashing the numbers of workers for the sake of it, we drool at the idea of more, faster computers, fewer humans. But as we struggle to adopt an ever-changing technology, we lose sight of the satisfaction that only a finely tuned human system can provide.”
― Tahir Shah, quote from Sorcerer's Apprentice
“My father looked on in disbelief, overwhelmed that his son had been taught to eat glass and relish it.”
― Tahir Shah, quote from Sorcerer's Apprentice
“A cross between a foreign legion boot-camp and a secret-society initiation ritual, the ordeals were grounded in pain. One thing was obvious: the agenda, which was dedicated to grave discomfort, had been drawn up by a passionate sadist.”
― Tahir Shah, quote from Sorcerer's Apprentice
“Returning to a city that one has known and loved fills you with a delicious sense of warmth.”
― Tahir Shah, quote from Sorcerer's Apprentice
Tahir Shah
Born place: in London, The United Kingdom
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“Sometimes I dream of revolution, a bloody coup d’etat by the second rank—troupes of actors slaughtered by their understudies, magicians sawn in half by indefatigably smiling glamour girls, cricket teams wiped out by marauding bands of twelfth men—I dream of champions chopped down by rabbit-punching sparring partners while eternal bridesmaids turn and rape the bridegrooms over the sausage rolls and parliamentary private secretaries plant bombs in the Minister’s Humber—comedians die on provincial stages, robbed of their feeds by mutely triumphant stooges— —and—march— —an army of assistants and deputies, the seconds-in-command, the runners-up, the right-handmen—storming the palace gates wherein the second son has already mounted the throne having committed regicide with a croquet-mallet—stand-ins”
― Tom Stoppard, quote from The Real Inspector Hound and Other Plays
“But in every family there are bad people, and weak people, and some people who can't or won't withstand the trials of life, and who fail spectacularly. Their guardian angels weep; demons beholding them dance for joy.
But only The Maker decides what ultimately happens to them.”
― Anne Rice, quote from Angel Time
“You go in, I go in."
"Listen---"
He took her face in his hands.
"You go, I go. That's non-negotiable. If we're to get blasted to hell or poisoned into lunatics, we do it together."
"Crap, Crap. You have to look less rich and gorgeous."
God help him, she made him grin. "I'll do what I can.”
― J.D. Robb, quote from Delusion in Death
“There are men who bloom in chaos. You call them heroes or villains, depending on which side wins the war, but until the battle call they are but normal men who long for action, who lust for the opportunity to throw off the routine of their normal lives like a cocoon and come into their own. They sense a destiny larger than themselves, but only when structures collapse around them do these men become warriors.”
― Guillermo del Toro, quote from The Fall
“MY LORD, when you ask me to tell the court in my own words, this is what I shall say. I am kept locked up here like some exotic animal, last survivor of a species they had thought extinct. They should let in people to view me, the girl-eater, svelte and dangerous, padding to and fro in my cage, my terrible green glance flickering past the bars, give them something to dream about, tucked up cosy in their beds of a night. After my capture they clawed at each other to get a look at me. They would have paid money for the privilege, I believe. They shouted abuse, and shook their fists at me, showing their teeth. It was unreal, somehow, frightening yet comic, the sight of them there, milling on the pavement like film extras, young men in cheap raincoats, and women with shopping bags, and one or two silent, grizzled characters who just stood, fixed on me hungrily, haggard with envy. Then a guard threw a blanket over my head and bundled me into a squad car. I laughed. There was something irresistibly funny in the way reality, banal as ever, was fulfilling my worst fantasies.”
― John Banville, quote from The Book of Evidence
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