Sandra

“The sheriff's job was not an easy one, and that county which, out of the grab bag of popular elections, pulled a good sheriff was lucky. It was a complicated position. The obvious duties of the sheriff - enforcing the law and keeping the peace - were far from the most important ones. It was true that the sheriff represented armed force in the county, but in a community seething with individuals a harsh or stupid sheriff did not last long. There were water rights, boundary disputes, astray arguments, domestic relations, paternity matters - All to be settled without force of arms. Only when everything else failed did a good sheriff make an arrest. The best sheriff was not the best fighter but the best diplomat.”
― John Steinbeck

“Yes, and words are not deeds, Solanka allowed, moving off fretfully. Though words can become deeds. If said in the right place and at the right time, they can move mountains and change the world. Also, uh-huh, not knowing what you're doing - separating deeds from the words that define them - was apparently becoming an acceptable excuse. To say "I didn't mean it" was to erase meaning from your misdeeds, at least in the opinion of the Beloved ALis of the world. Could that be so? Obviously, no. No, it simply could not. Many people would say that even a genuine act of repentance could not atone for a crime, much less this unexplained blankness - an infinitely lesser excuse, a mere assertion of ignorance that wouldn't even register on any scale of regret.”
― Salman Rushdie

“The only mind in the whole world he could not read was Javed’s: for what we discover, when we think we are discovering someone else’s thoughts, is our own diminished expectations of them. And the one person Manju could not create a diminished version of was this beak-nosed boy.”
― Aravind Adiga, Selection Day

“Suffering is not increased by numbers. One body can contain all the suffering the world can feel.”
― Graham Greene, The Quiet American