Mistakes are like bad loves, the more you learn from, the more you wish they'd never happened.

— Gregory David Roberts

Mistakes are like bad loves, the more you learn from them, the more you wish they’d never happened.

— Gregory David Roberts

More dreams are realized and extinguished in Bombay than any other place in India.

— Gregory David Roberts

Mumbai is the sweet, sweaty smell of hope, which is the opposite of hate; and it's the sour, stifled smell of greed, which is the opposite of love. It's the smell of Gods, demons, empires, and civilizations in resurrection and decay. It's the blue skin-smell of the sea, no matter where you are in the island city, and the blood metal smell of machines. It smells of the stir and sleep and the waste of sixty million animals, more than half of them humans and rats. It smells of heartbreak, and the struggle to live, and of the crucial failures and love that produces courage. Furthermore, it smells of ten thousand restaurants, five thousand temples, shrines, churches and mosques, and of hundred bazaar devoted exclusively to perfume, spices, incense, and freshly cut flowers. That smell, above all things - is that what welcomes me and tells me that I have come home. Then there were people. Assamese, Bats, and Punjabis; people from Rajasthan, Bengal, and Tamil Nadu; from Pusher, Cochin, and Sonar; warrior caste, Brahmin, and untouchable; Hindi, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Jain, Parser, Animist; fair skin and dark, green eyes and golden brown and black; every different face and form of that extravagant variety, that incomparable beauty, India.

— Gregory David Roberts

Nothing grieves more deeply or pathetically than one half of a great love that isn’t meant to be.

— Gregory David Roberts

One of the reasons why we crave love, and seek it so desperately, is that love is the only cure for loneliness, and shame, and sorrow. But some feelings sink so deep into the heart that only loneliness can help you find them again. Some truths about yourself are so painful that only shame can help you live with them. And some things are just so sad that only your soul can do the crying for you.

— Gregory David Roberts

Powerful people have no regrets.

— Gregory David Roberts

Prisons are the temples where devils learn to prey.

— Gregory David Roberts

Prisons are the temples where devils learn to prey. Every time we turn the key we twist the knife of fate, because every time we cage a man we close him in with hate.

— Gregory David Roberts

She loved the guy. She did it for him. Furthermore, she would’ve done anything for him. Some people are like that. Some loves are like that. Most loves are like that, from what I can see. Your heart starts to feel like an overcrowded lifeboat. You throw your pride out to keep it afloat, and your self-respect and your independence. After a while you start throwing people out—your friends, everyone you used to know. And it’s still not enough. The lifeboat is still sinking, and you know it’s going to take you down with it. I’ve seen that happen to a lot of people here. I think that’s why I’m sick of love.

— Gregory David Roberts