Gregory David Roberts

‘Abdul has a pet theory, Lin,’ said Khaled, the dour Palestinian. ‘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 men to bloodshed and chaos. He might be right, I think, but he goes on about it so much he drives us all crazy.’

His definition was sharp, and barbed enough-suffering is happiness, backwards-to hook a fish of memory.

His simple, unbeautiful words were the clearest expression of what all prisoners, and everyone else who lives long enough, know well-that suffering, of every kind, is always a matter of what we’ve lost. When we’re young, we think that suffering is something that’s 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.

‘Is easy-suffering is hungry, isn’t it? Hungry, for anything, means suffering. Not hungry for something, means, not suffering. But everybody knows that.’

The voice, Afghan matchmakers say, is more than half of love.

The legends say that the loved one is instantly recognised because she’s loved in every gesture, every expression of thought, every movement, every sound, and every mood that prays in her eyes. The legends say that we know her by her wings—the wings that only we can see—and because wanting her kills every other desire of love.

The past reflects eternally between two mirrors—the bright mirror of words and deeds, and the dark one, full of things we didn’t do or say.

Being listened to—really listened to—is the second-best thing in the world.

Some of the worst wrongs, Karla once said, were caused by people who tried to change things.

He was authentic. He expressed the uniqueness when what we are, is what we’re free to become