A Guardian and a Thief Quotes

“He understood, from everything he had endured in his own life, that the worth of honesty, presented as noble before schoolchildren, was itself a lie. The honest souls who paused to deliberate on morals found, when they made their choice, that the treasure was gone. What was absolutely true and right, and what was absolutely false and wrong, and how could any sane person live without crossing the borders every day? Lies were the lifeblood of the world.”
― Megha Majumdar, A Guardian and a Thief

“The pride of having immigrated was also, in truth, the wound. Didn’t they understand that? Didn’t they understand that he wanted every opportunity to examine the wound?”
― Megha Majumdar, A Guardian and a Thief

“But pity was not a relationship. It was the rejection of a relationship.”
― Megha Majumdar, A Guardian and a Thief

“He was too old to commence life in a new country. In America, he knew, he would be a diminished version of himself—uncertain of social mores, unaccustomed to the accents, wary of car culture. There would be nobody in that place acquainted with his boyhood self. Was such an escape rescue or its own ruin?”
― Megha Majumdar, A Guardian and a Thief

“This was the city he believed in, the city in which knowing somebody once was knowing them forever. The city in which knowing somebody meant laying claim to their time, and expecting them to lay claim to one’s own time. Everything beautiful, and everything useful, about the city could be found in these relationships of dependence—with one’s barber, one’s rickshaw driver, one’s editor, one’s neighbor. How had Dadu forgotten that?”
― Megha Majumdar, A Guardian and a Thief

“Other Americans had gathered at their home airports, urging politicians to reverse the measure, to allow lifesaving flights to continue, to think of the families awaiting reuniting, to think of the pain of children who were waiting to see their mother or father. These Americans urged their representatives to remember that all immigrants underwent thorough background checks; that applicants supplied stacks of documents to prove who they were and what their life had been; that the consulates examined bank statements, tax returns, pay stubs, employment history, education history, family history, property ownership; that they were fingerprinted, and their eyes scanned; that nobody who had even dreamed of violent behavior was issued a visa. But it was a time of anger and outcry, not of reason, nor compassion.”
― Megha Majumdar, A Guardian and a Thief

“Maybe, if he had had somebody caring for him in the city, he would not have surrendered his bicycle and his money so easily to the policemen or the robbers, whoever they were. Now he felt ashamed, and resentful. Where was the new person he had vowed to be, mean and free? He had retreated, conceding to the person he always had been, gentle and grinning, baffled before the barbed edges of the world. That person would not survive in the city.”
― Megha Majumdar, A Guardian and a Thief

“Perhaps the true adventure was not only in seeing the world but also in seeing the versions of one’s own self that the journey revealed.”
― Megha Majumdar, A Guardian and a Thief

“Away from his parents and his brother, he could be anybody. He could be, temporarily, free of his wrongs, and free of his guilt. He did not have to cower in shame. He could be prideful, or harsh, or aloof, or a person others listened to. Upon those others he could release the anger he had for himself. Perhaps the true adventure was not only in seeing the world but also in seeing the versions of one’s own self that the journey revealed.”
― Megha Majumdar, A Guardian and a Thief

“The depth of night always felt adjacent to real life, a fourth dimension of the world that allowed the honesty and courage that daylight forbade. Perhaps it was that the moon and stars reminded people of their finite lives in the margins of the universe’s story—what did it matter what human beings did or didn’t do? Or perhaps it was only the clock losing its tether to the day’s routines and yielding to pure time.”
― Megha Majumdar, A Guardian and a Thief

“Perhaps the true adventure was not only in seeing the world but also in seeing the versions of one's own self that the journey revealed.”
― Megha Majumdar, A Guardian and a Thief

“Perhaps it was the strange distortion of the crisis, or perhaps it was simply human nature, that the pain of others was never as acute or compelling as one's own pain.”
― Megha Majumdar, A Guardian and a Thief

“What was the point of adventure if you didn't take those you love with you.”
― Megha Majumdar, A Guardian and a Thief

“The thief stole from us, so we stole from him. Tit for tat.”
― Megha Majumdar, A Guardian and a Thief

“There could yet be notes of adventure in his journey of survival.”
― Megha Majumdar, A Guardian and a Thief

“The depth of night always felt adjacent to real life, a fourth dimension of hte world that allwed the honesty and courage that daylight forbade.”
― Megha Majumdar, A Guardian and a Thief