He feared at certain moments that the only new knowledge he would take away from this country was learning how to swim and use the telephone.
All of them would understand, as he did now, that he had crossed a line in himself, he had left their world behind, the decent world of tea parties and suburban witticisms.
What he sensed more than anything else was kindness – a kindness of a human and immediate sort. It was surprising how very radical this simple emotion could be.
A journey is a gesture inscribed in space, it vanishes even as it’s made. You go from one place to another place, and on to somewhere else again, and already behind you there is no trace that you were ever there.
The Indians were inside their bodies, he decided, in a way that the British were not. His own flesh impeded his spirit.
If I had done this, if I had said that, in the end you are always more tormented by what you didn’t do than what you did, actions already performed can always be rationalized in time, the neglected deed might have changed the world.
Goldie was a believer in the imperial project, which is to say, in the civilising power of social progress.
No emotion was supposed to cross the great divide of class. Affection could erase all hierarchy; in this was the danger, and the delight.
It is always an attractive moment when curiosity takes hold.
A silence followed, while the two men contemplated dying for love.
What I don’t understand about your type is that you want to emulate the other side. You kick up such a commotion about being different, and all you want is to be the same.
Of what earthly use were novels? How did they help anybody?
Stationery gets me excited because it has an individual character, unlike computers, which may be convenient but are generic and bland.