quotes by Rohinton Mistry

"...you have to use your failures as stepping stones to success. You have to maintain a fine balance between hope and despair. In the end it’s all a question of balance."
— Rohinton Mistry (A Fine Balance)

"Everyone underestimates their own life. Funny thing is, in the end, all our stories...they're the same. In fact, no matter where you go in the world, there is only one important story: of youth, loss and yearning for redemption. So we tell the same story, over and over. Only the details are different. "
— Rohinton Mistry (Family Matters)

"There didn't seem to her any harm in it, and the make-believe was so comforting."
— Rohinton Mistry (A Fine Balance)

"'Lately you are brooding too much about rights. Give up this dangerous habit.'"
— Rohinton Mistry (A Fine Balance)

"'Hahnji, mister, you must be patient. Before you can name that corner, our future must become past.'"
— Rohinton Mistry (A Fine Balance)

"'After all, our lives are but a sequence of accidents - a clanking chain of chance events. A string of choices, casual or deliberate, which add up to that one big calamity we call life.'"
— Rohinton Mistry (A Fine Balance)

"If there was an abundance of misery in the world, there was also sufficient joy, yes - as long as one knew where to look for it."
— Rohinton Mistry (A Fine Balance)

"He who spits paan at the ceiling only blinds himself."
— Rohinton Mistry (A Fine Balance)

"'The Law is a grim, unsmiling thing. Not Justice, though. Justice is witty and whimsical and kind and caring.'"
— Rohinton Mistry (A Fine Balance)

"What sense did the world make? Where was God, the Bloody Fool? Did He have no notion of fair and unfair? Couldn't He read a simple balance sheet? He would have been sacked long ago if He were managing a corporation, the things he allowed to happen..."
— Rohinton Mistry (A Fine Balance)

"But nobody ever forgot anything, not really, though sometimes they pretended, when it suited them. Memories were permanent. Sorrowful ones remained sad even with the passing of time, yet happy ones could never be recreated - not with the same joy. Remembering bred its own peculiar sorrow. It seemed so unfair: that time should render both sadness and happiness into a source of pain."
— Rohinton Mistry (A Fine Balance)