The best quotes by the author we have brought to you
“A problem becomes a problem only if you believe it to be so. And often others see you as you see yourself.” (The Palace of Illusions Quotes)
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
The Palace of Illusions
“A situation in itself,” he said, “is neither happy nor unhappy. It’s only your response to it that causes your sorrow.”
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
The Palace of Illusions
“Above us our palace waits, the only one I’ve ever needed. Its walls are space, its floor is sky, its center everywhere. We rise; the shapes cluster around us in welcome, dissolving and forming again like fireflies in a summer evening.”
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
The Palace of Illusions
“And if I wasn’t able to bar anger, or her insidious cousin, irritation, From my heart, at least some of the time I bit back the sharp comments that I had prided myself on dispensing so freely all these years.”
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
The Palace of Illusions
“Aren’t we all pawns in the hands of time, the greatest player of them all?”
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
The Palace of Illusions
“But truth, when it’s being lived, is less glamorous than our imaginings.”
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
The Palace of Illusions
“Can our actions change our destiny? Or are they like sand piled against the breakage in a dam, merely delaying the inevitable?”
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
The Palace of Illusions
“Distance is a great promoter of harmony.”
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
The Palace of Illusions
“Even the wisest don’t know what’s hidden in the depths of their being.”
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
The Palace of Illusions
“Expectations are like hidden rocks in your path- all they do is trip you up.”
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
The Palace of Illusions
“How little we know our own reputations, I thought with a bitter smile.”
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
The Palace of Illusions
“I am buoyant and expansive and uncontainable–but I always was so, only I never knew it!”
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
The Palace of Illusions
“I broke the first rule, the unwritten one, meant not just for warriors but all of us: I took love and used it as a balm to soothe my ego.”
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
The Palace of Illusions
“I heard the laments of the people of Hastinapur, their sorrow at losing us. But I no longer required their tears. It baffled me that as a younger women I’d thought that such a thing would make me happy.”
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
The Palace of Illusions
“I saw something I hadn’t realized before: words wasted energy. I would use my strength instead to nurture my belief that my life would unfurl uniquely.”
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
The Palace of Illusions
“I thought that if lokas existed at all, good women would surely go to one where men were not allowed so that they could be finally free of male demands.”
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
The Palace of Illusions
“I tried to hold on to this compassion, sensing its preciousness, but even as I reached to grasp it, it dissipated into wisps. No revelation can endure unless it is bolstered by a calm pure mind- and I’m afraid I didn’t possess that.”
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
The Palace of Illusions
“Just as we cast off worn clothes and wear new ones, when the time arrives, the soul casts off the body and finds a new one to work out its karma. Therefore the wise grieve neither for the living nor the dead.”
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
The Palace of Illusions
“Just as you’ve deceived me, so will your mind deceive you. When you need the Brahmastra the most, you’ll forget the mantra needed to call it up.”
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
The Palace of Illusions
“Love comes like lightning, and disappears the same way. If you are lucky, it strikes you right. If not, you’ll spend your life yearning for a man you can’t have.”
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
The Palace of Illusions
“Love. There’s no argument, no matter how strong, that can overcome that word.”
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
The Palace of Illusions
“She taught me to close myself off from the sorrow of others so that I might survive.”
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
The Palace of Illusions
“She who sows vengeance must reap its bloody fruit.”
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
The Palace of Illusions
“Sometimes one has to drop logic and go with the instinct of the heart, even if it contradicts law.”
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
The Palace of Illusions
“The choice they made in the moment of my need changed something in our relationship. I no longer depended on them so completely in the future. And when I took care to guard myself from hurt, it was as much from them as from our enemies.”
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
The Palace of Illusions
“The heart itself is beyond control. That is its power, and its weakness.”
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
The Palace of Illusions
“The pleasures that arise from sense-objects are bound to end, and thus they are only sources of pain. Don’t get attached to them. And: When a man reaches a state where honor and dishonor are alike to him, then he is considered supreme. Strive to gain such a state.”
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
The Palace of Illusions
“There was an unexpected freedom in finding out that one wasn’t as important as one had always assumed!”
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
The Palace of Illusions
“Time is the great eraser, both of sorrow and of joy.”
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
The Palace of Illusions
“To see a loved one in pain is more wrenching than to bear that pain yourself.”
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
The Palace of Illusions
“Wait for a man to avenge your honor, and you’ll wait forever.”
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
The Palace of Illusions
“We cannot force ourselves to love—or to withhold it. At best, we can curb our actions. The heart itself is beyond control. That is its power, and its weakness.”
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
The Palace of Illusions
“Why man found himself driven to wrongdoing in spite of good intentions, Krishna replied, Because of anger and desire, our two direst enemies.”
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
The Palace of Illusions
“Wisdom that isn’t distilled in our own crucible can’t help us.”
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
The Palace of Illusions
“You will be remembered for causing the greatest war of your time.”
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
The Palace of Illusions
“Your childhood hunger is the one that never leaves you. No matter how famous or powerful they became, my husbands would always long to be cherished. They would always yearn to feel worthy. If a person could make them feel that way, they’d bind themselves to him—or her—forever.”
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
The Palace of Illusions
