The Leaving of Things Quotes

“we steadily endure our lives and ultimately we are alone in our endurance. In this aloneness, we find our strength.”
― Jay Antani, The Leaving of Things

“It was all as I’d predicted. But just because you predicted something would happen didn’t make it any easier when it actually did.”
― Jay Antani, The Leaving of Things

“sun hit the Taj’s marble dome full force, setting the whole structure and the minarets at each corner of the white plinth on fire. Whatever this was, I thought, it did not belong among us. A shimmering ark brought down to Earth. For an instant, I floated away, above myself, and thought I was looking at an exquisitely carved mountain of moon rock. It was more than the mind could take in at once. More than any camera could take in, for sure. Postcards and movies did not do this place justice; no photograph could.”
― Jay Antani, The Leaving of Things

“To you I would only say go as far as you can with what you love. And start quick, hmm? Youth is brief.”
― Jay Antani, The Leaving of Things

“we steadily endure our lives and ultimately we are alone in our endurance.”
― Jay Antani, The Leaving of Things

“How could it ever be that way again? By what trick could I bring all that back? If I could have it back, it wouldn’t be the same anyway. Because the discoveries would already have been made. What you left behind had its time and its purpose, and all became memory, a sentiment, a lesson learned, and history. I told myself you had to leave; it could never be again.”
― Jay Antani, The Leaving of Things

“You said so yourself, no? The system is not kind to you if you function outside its rules.”
― Jay Antani, The Leaving of Things

“I didn’t want to drag them down with me, and I didn’t want empty words to cheer me up either. All I could think to do was walk out of there. There was nothing to say.”
― Jay Antani, The Leaving of Things

“Every opportunity is a dividing line. Here, you have things as they are.” He raised one palm, then the other. “And here, things as they can be.” His palms were but vaguely discernible shapes. “You choose if you want to commit to stepping over the line, easy as that, really.”
― Jay Antani, The Leaving of Things

“You can’t let what is unknown run your life, can you?”
― Jay Antani, The Leaving of Things

“You can leave India, I thought, but India never leaves you.”
― Jay Antani, The Leaving of Things

“My leaving and the costs of my leaving had to pass through here with no more effect than the wind blowing through the balcony, ruffling the sheets on the line and the pages of one of the notebooks on my desk.”
― Jay Antani, The Leaving of Things

“One of us or one of them. I felt one of neither.”
― Jay Antani, The Leaving of Things

“The best of things at the worst of times. The universe had to be rigged.”
― Jay Antani, The Leaving of Things

“I was spared jail time that night, but wasn’t shame another kind of jail time? Jail time you imposed on yourself?”
― Jay Antani, The Leaving of Things

“ultimate blessing. “What are you doing here, then?”
― Jay Antani, The Leaving of Things