Shantaram-Part 2

This book was just too big for one post so I'll break it up. Here's a few more of my favorite quotes:

"The truth is that there are no good men, or bad men,' he said. 'It is the deeds that have goodness or badness in them. There are good deeds, and bad deeds. Men are just men- it is what they do or refuse to do, that links them to good and evil. The truth is that an instant of real love, in the heart of anyone-the noblest man alive or the most wicked-has the whole purpose and process and meaning of life within the lotus-folds of its passion. The truth is that we are all, every one of us, every atom, every galaxy, and every particle of matter in the universe, moving toward God."

Here is a list of books the author made reference to. These are the books that Karla has devoured, consumed. 'She was unafraid to mark them, even to scar them, with her own comments and system of references.' I bet they are a very interesting read. Stendhal's The Charterhouse of Parma. Madame Bovary. Thomas Man and Schiller. Djuna Barnes and Virginia Woolf. Maldoror by Isidore Ducasse. Gogol's Dead Souls.

Another great quote: "Sometimes we love with nothing more than hope. Sometimes we cry with everything except tears. In the end that's all there is: love and its duty, sorrow and its truth. In the end that's all we have-to hold on tight until the dawn.

'What?' I asked irritably, although his smile was irresistible, and he knew it, and I was already smiling with him in my heart. 'A man...' he began, intoning the words with sacramental solemnity. 'Not again, Prabu.' '.... must love his bear,' he concluded, patting at his chest and wagging his head frantically. 'A man must love his bear'.

What is suffering?
"our suffering is our religion...our duty is to work, and to suffer"
"Suffering is a matter of choice. We do not have to suffer anything in this life, if we are strong enough to deny it. Suffering is a human weakness"
"And what of strength? Is it not true that some of our strength comes from suffering? That suffering hardship makes us stronger? That those of us who have never known a real hardship, and true suffering cannot have the same strength as other, who have suffered much?
"I still think it is is a matter of strength and weakness"
"I do agree there is an element of control that we have over suffering. I don't think you can deny that."
"Where do we get this control, and how?"
"I would say it is different for all of us, but that it happens when we grow up, when we mature. I think that it is a part of growing up, learning to control our suffering. I think that when we grow up, and learn that happiness is rare, and passes quickly, we become disillusioned and hurt. And how much we suffer is a mark of how much we have been hurt by this realisation. Suffering you see, is a kind of anger. We rage against the unfairness, the injustice of our sad and sorry lot. And this boiling resentment, you see, this anger, is what we call suffering. It is also what leads us to the hero cure, I might add."
"He believes that certain men are cursed with qualities, such as great courage, that make them commit desperate acts. He calls it the hero curse, the thing that compels them to lead other med to bloodshed and chaos. "
"Is there a difference, would you say, between suffering that we experience, and suffering that we cause for others? If there are at least 2 kinds of suffering they can hardly both be the anger that you spoke of"
"The burden of happiness can only be relieved by the balm of suffering. I think that happiness is a real thing, but it is what makes us crazy people. Happiness is a strange and powerful thing that makes us sick, and suffering is what cures us of it."
"You say that the Koran tells us how our sin and wrong-doing is the cause of our suffering. By living by right principles, according the the Koran, will banish suffering from the life of a good Muslim, and lead him to eternal bliss of heaven when life is at an end."
"I think that suffering is the way we test our love. Every act of suffering, no matter how small or agonisingly great, is a test of love in some way. Most of the time, suffering is also a test of our love for God. The Holy Koran tells us that all things in the Universe are related, one to another, and that even opposites are united in some way. I think that there are two points about suffering that we should remember, and they have to do with pleasure and pain. The first is this: that pain and suffering are connected but they are not the same thing. Pain can exist with out suffering, and it is also possible to suffer without feeling pain. Do you agree? The difference between them is this, I think: that what we learn from pain-for example, that fire burns and is dangerous-is always individual, for ourselves alone, but what we learn from suffering is what unites us as one human people. If we do not suffer with our pain, then we have not learned about anything but ourselves. Pain without suffering is like victory without struggle. We do not learn from it what makes us stronger or or closer to God. Suffering is exactly like happiness, but backwards. On is the mirror image of the other, and has no real meaning or existence without the other."
"the universe, as those of the Parsee faith see it, is a process of struggle between opposites-light and darkness, hot and cold, suffering and pleasure-and that nothing can exist without the existence of its opposite."
"Suffering of every kind, is always a matter of what we've lost. When we're young, we think that suffering is something that is done to us. When we get older-when the steel door slams shut, in one way or another-we know that real suffering is measured by what's taken away from us."