First Commit

5 Media/6 Readwise/Books/Shantaram.md

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+# Shantaram
+
+![rw-book-cover](https://readwise-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/static/images/default-book-icon-2.dae1dc4d332b.png)
+
+## Metadata
+- Author: [[Roberts, Gregory David]]
+- Full Title: Shantaram
+- Category: #books
+
+## Highlights
+- I sometimes think that the size of our happiness is inversely proportional to the size of our house.’ (Location 5308)
+- percussive and exciting music of towering ambition: the nervous irritation of generators, the merciless metal-to-metal zing of hammers, and the whining insistence of drills and grinders. Snaking lines of sari-clad women carrying dishes of gravel on their heads wove through all the workplaces, from man-made dunes of small stones to the yawning mouths of ceaselessly revolving cement-mixing machines. To my western eyes, those fluid, feminine figures in (Location 5455)
+- and depend upon the inequalities between us. It was vassal-love, (Location 7007)
+- That look, that frowning smile, combined shame and exultation because both are essential—shame gives exultation its purpose, and exultation gives shame its reward. We’d saved him as much by joining in his exultation as we had by witnessing his shame. And all of it depended upon our action, our interference in his life, because no man is saved without love. (Location 7952)
+- It’s forgiveness that makes us what we are. Without forgiveness, our species would’ve annihilated itself in endless retributions. Without forgiveness, there would be no history. Without that hope, there would be no art, for every work of art is in some way an act of forgiveness. Without that dream, there would be no love, for every act of love is in some way a promise to forgive. We live on because we can love, and we love because we can forgive. (Location 7957)
+- They were poor, tired, worried men, but they were Indian, and any Indian man will tell you that although love might not have been invented in India, it was certainly perfected there. (Location 8455)
+- Silence is the tortured man’s revenge. (Location 8648)
+- ‘But it’s not true. It’s the other way round. Money isn’t the root of all evil. Evil is the root of all money. There’s no such thing as clean money. All the money in the world is dirty, in some way, because there’s no clean way to make it. If you get paid in money, somebody, somewhere, is suffering for it. That’s one of the reasons, I think, why just about everybody—even people who’d never break the law in any other way—is happy to add an extra buck or two to their money on the black market.’ (Location 9506)
+- But I am sure that the science is right, within the limit of what we know. (Location 10263)
+- smiling at me as Nazeer drove away, but it was Nazeer’s scowl, (Location 10467)
+- It was as if I was the one who was keeping secrets; and no matter how thick my mind became with thoughts of the murder, I never admitted them to him. (Location 11741)
+- ‘In order to know about any act or intention or consequence, we must first ask two questions. One, what would happen if everyone did this thing? Two, would this help or hinder the movement toward complexity?’ (Location 11791)
+- his young face assumed a numb expression. I knew that expression. I sometimes caught it, by chance, in the mirror: the way we look when the part of happiness that’s trusting and innocent is ripped away, and we blame ourselves, rightly or wrongly, for its loss. (Location 12227)
+- It was black money, and black money runs through the fingers faster than legal, hard-earned money. If we can’t respect the way we earn it, money has no value. If we can’t use it to make life better for our families and loved ones, money has no purpose. (Location 13000)
+- famous for its delicious faloodah drinks, but they were insipid (Location 14168)
+- ‘Remember,’ Khader said insistently, resting his hand on my forearm to emphasise his words. ‘Sometimes it is necessary to do the wrong thing for the right reasons. The important thing is to be sure that our reasons are right, and that we admit the wrong—that we do not lie to ourselves, and convince ourselves that what we do is right.’ (Location 15114)
+- Love is the passionate search for a truth other than your own; and once you feel it, honestly and completely, love is forever. Every act of love, every moment of the heart reaching out, is a part of the universal good: it’s a part of God, or what we call God, and it can never die. (Location 15762)
+- I didn’t know then, as I do now, that love’s a one-way street. Love, like respect, isn’t something you get; it’s something you give. (Location 16137)
+- He’d been able to deal with that pain because he’d accepted his own part in causing it. I’d never accepted my share of responsibility—right up to that moment—for the way my marriage had failed or for the heartache that had followed it. That was why I’d never dealt with it. (Location 18495)
+- Nothing in any life, no matter how well or poorly lived, is wiser than failure or clearer than sorrow. And in the tiny, precious wisdom that they give to us, even those dread and hated enemies, suffering and failure, have their reason and their right to be. (Location 18508)
+- I never told her that—what her affectionate and unconditional acceptance meant to me. So much, too much, of the good that I felt in those years of exile was locked in the prison cell of my heart: those tall walls of fear; that small, barred window of hope; that hard bed of shame. I do speak out now. I know now that when the loving, honest moment comes it should be seized, and spoken, because it may never come again. And unvoiced, unmoving, unlived in the things we declare from heart to heart, those true and real feelings wither and crumble in the remembering hand that tries too late to reach for them. (Location 18683)
+- They couldn’t understand that every time I entered the slum I felt the urge to let go and surrender to a simpler, poorer life that was yet richer in respect, and love, and a vicinal connectedness to the surrounding sea of human hearts. They couldn’t understand what I meant when I talked about the purity of the slum: they’d been there, and seen the wretchedness and filth for themselves. They saw no purity. But they hadn’t lived in those miraculous acres, and they hadn’t learned that to survive in such a writhe of hope and sorrow the people had to be scrupulously and heartbreakingly honest. That was the source of their purity: above all things, they were true to themselves. (Location 18883)
+- pathway take the sheaves of rupee notes we’d brought as alms. (Location 19393)
+- Looking at the people, listening to the breathing, heaving, laughing, struggling music of the slum, all around me, I remembered one of Khaderbhai’s favourite phrases. Every human heartbeat, he’d said many times, is a universe of possibilities. And it seemed to me that I finally understood exactly what he’d meant. He’d been trying to tell me that every human will has the power to transform its fate. I’d always thought that fate was something unchangeable: fixed for every one of us at birth, and as constant as the circuit of the stars. But I suddenly realised that life is stranger and more beautiful than that. The truth is that, no matter what kind of game you find yourself in, no matter how good or bad the luck, you can change your life completely with a single thought or a single act of love. (Location 19841)