Quotes by Sri Lankan Authors - Page 3

Love and betrayal comes hand in hand.
Ama H. Vanniarachchy
We as human beings need freedom, and justice, and a true cause to engage in to make life meaningful. This basic and comprehensive dream cannot be allowed to be shattered under any circumstances; if it starts shattering then the resistance will arise. The elimination of torture and other practiced cruelty needs to be effected for there to be freedom and justice. It will guide us in our search for a secure place to enjoy personal liberties.
Nilantha Ilangamuwa
…mysticism –perhaps the main aberration of the human mind.
Arthur C. Clarke
Day n night passing by,No tribute, we cannot deny,We did to world's problems so deep,Not a single sign, to take the leap.Senseless striving for some unknown glory,Too patiently awaiting time for our story.Still haven't spot that light,That make us seem calm n bright.How to ensure tis time-being,Is not in vain, but commencement of freeing.
Akilnathan Logeswaran
A love story is not about those who lost their heart but about those who find that sullen inhabitant who, when it is stumbled upon, means the body can fool no one, can fool nothing—not the wisdom of sleep or the habit of social graces. It is a consuming of oneself and the past.
Michael Ondaatje
In my life I have found two things of priceless worth - learning and loving. Nothing else - not fame, not power, not achievement for its own sake - can possible have the same lasting value. For when your life is over, if you can say 'I have learned' and 'I have loved,' you will also be able to say 'I have been happy.
Arthur C. Clarke
In Sri Lanka, when two strangers meet, they ask a series of questions that reveal family, ancestral village, and blood ties until they arrive at a common friend or relative. Then they say, "Those are our people, so you are our people." It's a small place. Everyone knows everyone."But in America, there are no such namings; it is possible to slip and slide here. It is possible to get lost in the nameless multitudes. There are no ropes binding one, holding one to the earth. Unbound by place or name, one is aware that it is possible to drift out into the atmosphere and beyond that, into the solitary darkness where there is no oxygen.
Nayomi Munaweera
But the people only talked about how ugly her face looked. No one even bothered to mention what a sweet, kindhearted girl she was. Now, don’t be amazed! That is just the nature of humans, to notice the one flaw among a person’s ten good qualities.
Janaki Sooriyarachchi
Leaders are not the ones with the right position or a proclaimed or given title, the actual leaders are the people who start acting, who step up, who do change, no matter in what way or how small!
Akilnathan Logeswaran
I fear the many faces, many personalities in me. Sometimes I fail to understand my self and become deceived by my various selves.
Ama H. Vanniarachchy
What if you'd live every day as if you were our society's future and hope?
Akilnathan Logeswaran
The only things I can’t offer you are children and politicians: the first is illegal and the second is expensive
Yudhanjaya Wijeratne
The traditional Confucian structure that invoked ideals of perfect human virtue for harmony must incorporate the rule of law for the modern era.
Patrick Mendis
It is not good to talk about rude things you have done willingly or mistakenly. We have to forget those things after telling about it to someone virtues. Then we have another chance to correct us. Repeatedly reminding those things will give us lot of bad results. Instead it is better to talk about best things you have done.
Muditha Champika
Most people think the closet is a small room. They think you can touch the walls, touch the door, turn the handle, and walk free. But when you're inside it, the closet is vast. No walls, no door, just empty darkness stretching the length of the world.
S.J. Sindu
Sometimes I wish life was written pencil so we could erase it and write it all over again.
Thisuri Wanniarachchi
What we call life...is the combination of the Five Aggregates, a combination of physical and mental energies. These are constantly changing; they do not remain the same for two consecutive moments. Every moment they are born and they die. 'When the Aggregates arise, decay and die, O bhikkhu, every moment you are born, decay, and die.' This, even dow during this life time, every moment we are born and die, but we continue. If we can understand that in this life we can continue without a permanent, unchanging substance like Self or Soul, why can't we understand that those forces themselves can continue without a Self or a Soul behind them after the non-functioning of the body?
Walpola Rahula
He was with me, beside me, inside me, and I did not care that my children were asleep, alone at home, or that the neighbors might come to know. He burned the fear out of me until all was left was desire.
Ru Freeman
Life is not about who you know, but rather about who knows you & what you stand for. Show the world with presence, actions & the way you lead your life, who you are.
Akilnathan Logeswaran
This two-track plan of nationalism and development (in China) is a historically powerful weapon.
Patrick Mendis
If you want to denounce impunity then you have to start with denouncing the impunity that the regime enjoys.
Nilantha Ilangamuwa
In accordance with the terms of the Clarke-Asimov treaty, the second-bestscience writer dedicates this book to the second-best science-fictionwriter.[dedication to Isaac Asimov from Arthur C. Clarke in his book Report on Planet Three]
Arthur C. Clarke
You built your walls too, she tells him. So I have my wall. She says it glittering in a beauty he cannot stand. She with her beautiful clothes with her pale face that laughs at everyone who smiles at her...
Michael Ondaatje
Whatever is impermanent is dukkha’ (Yad aniccaṃ taṃ dukkhaṃ).
Walpola Rahula
Only sweet people with good virtues can go to fairyland. Those who treat others meanly and without respect can never go there.
Janaki Sooriyarachchi
Once, I believed that space couldhave no power over faith, just as I believed the heavens declared the glory of God’shandwork. Now I have seen that handwork, and my faith is sorely troubled.
Arthur C. Clarke
The limits of the possible can only be defined by going beyond them into the impossible
Arthur C. Clarke
Such bliss is not meant to last. In my husband's house, my children were my real gifts.
Ru Freeman
A few years ago, a taxi driver told me about a club & a dog. A waiter taught me a lesson about ladders today. Life is full of class sessions for those who have passion & listen.
Indeewara Jayawardane
There is a certain new ferocity in her eyes now. A certain new thing that was not there before. I recognize it as scar tissue. When a bone breaks, it heals stronger in the cracks. I realize this is what is happening to her heart.
Nayomi Munaweera
Excessive interest in pathological behavior was itself pathological
Arthur C. Clarke
Hurry means that we gather impressions but have no experiences, that we collect acquaintances but make no friends, that we attend meetings but experience no encounter. We must recover eternity if we are to find time, and eternity is what Jesus came to restore. For without it, there can be no charity.
D.T. Niles
Artists are strange people. They make the world a beautiful place, and make others feel good, but they are a bunch of lonely people. Artists are people with unfulfilled, unrealistic dreams, lonely, and always searching for perfection.
Ama H. Vanniarachchy
I am not in love with him, I am in love with ghosts. So is he, he's in love with ghosts.
Michael Ondaatje
We’re going to tell these people that they dropped because Facebook dropped us. We're going to say the Number needs the data and it's their right to share it with us. And we’re going to drop their Numbers again. And again. Until they riot on the Internet and make those Menlo Park motherfuckers come to us with their hats in their hands.
Yudhanjaya Wijeratne
But most of the time, with a contented resignation that comes normally to a man only at the end of a long and busy life, he sat before the keyboard and filled the air with his beloved Bach. Perhaps he was deceiving himself, perhaps this was some merciful trick of the mind but now it seemed to Jan that this what he had always wished to do. His secret ambition had at last dared to emerge into the full light of consciousness. Jan had always been a good pianist, and now he was the finest in the world.
Arthur C. Clarke
Balochistan was refused legitimacy for its nationhood with the creation of Pakistan due to the geographical location and the rich natural resources. The story would have been completely different if this has been a barren land.
Nilantha Ilangamuwa
there are words inside me that don’t want to hide anymore.Perfect or not, they don’t want to be safe for much longer.They want to be free.
Gayendra Abeywardane
This was the time in her life that she fell upon books as the only door out of her cell. They became half her world.
Michael Ondaatje
When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
Arthur C. Clarke
What was more, they had taken the first step toward genuine friendship. They had exchanged vulnerabilities.
Arthur C. Clarke
I love the smell of pastels...that breaths life into my soul.
Ama H. Vanniarachchy
The victory is not only the pathway of celebration but also to take the greater degree of responsibility for those who were victimised.
Nilantha Ilangamuwa
Tennis taught me to take chances, to take life as it comes. To hit every ball that comes to me no matter how hard it looks, to give it my best shot.
Thisuri Wanniarachchi
A blind lover, don't knowwhat I love till I write it out
Michael Ondaatje
How we are almost nothing. We think, in our youth, we are the centre of the universe, but we simply respond, go this way or that by accident, survive or improve by the luck of the draw, with little choice or determination on our part.
Michael Ondaatje
When the time has come, every leaf turns to face the sun!It doesn't know if it has to, but because the call has reached it:Not knowing what to expect, it will, move slightly, twist patientlyand try to embrace whatever is coming! It might be too strong, it might be too weak, it also might just be perfect!
Akilnathan Logeswaran
The African continent has so many stories to tell, it's about time they are told, by them - not us.
Akilnathan Logeswaran
Two thoughts cannot coexist at the same time: if the clear light of mindfulness is present, there is no room for mental twilight.
Nyanaponika Thera
We play hide-and-seek, wade into her ponds to fill jam jars with writhing tadpoles, and cavort with her pack of dogs, named Brandy, Whiskey, Lager, so that just calling the pack makes one feel light-headed and drunk.
Nayomi Munaweera
People keep saying someone should fix the system, the system is corrupt. What they don’t get is; they are the system. It’s just like how people hate McDonald’s and Coca Cola. People say they are evil corporations, terrorists and ruining the health of the future but then, how are these brands live and running all over the world, making billions of dollars of profit every day? People still buy it, that’s how. The majority of the world is people who know something is bad for them but keep consuming it. If it’s so bad for you, why buy it? If the system is so bad, why do they vote for it? It’s the people who need to change not the leaders.
Thisuri Wanniarachchi
Within this historic and optimistic future in mind, I have made no value judgment of the destiny bestowed on each nation. For all this, however, leadership matters; so do the institutional structures and the system of political governance.
Patrick Mendis
And the Buddha pointed out that his confusion was justified, for 'the dharma is profound, difficult to see, difficult to understand, peaceful, excellent, beyond the sphere of logic, subtle, and to be understood by the wise'. The reason for this is that it is not readily comprehended by one who holds a different view and has different learnings and inclinations, different involvements and instruction. It is clear from this statement that the conception of nibbāna in beyond logical reasoning, not because it is an Ultimate Reality transcending logic, but because logic or reason, being the 'slave of passions', makes it difficult for one who has a passion for an alien tradition to understand the conception of nibbāna.
David J. Kalupahana
Feeling extremely foolish, the acting representative of Homo sapiens watched his First Contact stride away across the Raman plain, totally indifferent to his presence.
Arthur C. Clarke
This is how we progress as humans. We went from horseless carriages to self-driving, self-organizing transport in a hundred and fifty years. We went from powered flight to putting a man on the moon in sixty years. We’ve always progressed in leaps and bounds. It is our ability, no, our duty, to do what is efficient, and to do what is best, to evolve not just our vehicles and our cities and our homes, but also the social structures that hold us back
Yudhanjaya Wijeratne
Her heart filled with boundless love that surged anew for her father. She felt like rushing to him and planting a quick kiss on his cheek the way she used to when she was a small girl. However, these villagers are not in the habit of kissing their offspring after they grow up. They show their love and affection by stroking their heads, addressing them in endearing words and blessing them.
Swarnakanthi Rajapakse
Western man had relearned-what the rest of the world had never forgotten-that there was nothing sinful in leisure as long as it did not degenerate into mere sloth.
Arthur C. Clarke
And yet, even while they baffled him, they aroused within his heart a feeling he had never known before. When- which was not often, but sometimes happened- they burst into tears of utter frustration or despair, their tiny disappointments seemed to him more tragic than Man’s long retreat after the loss of his Galactic Empire. That was something too huge and remote for comprehension, but the weeping of a child could pierce one to the heart.Alvin had met love in Diaspar, but now he was learning something equally precious, and without which love itself could never reach its highest fulfillment but must remain forever incomplete. He was learning tenderness.
Arthur C. Clarke
The greatest betrayal is betraying yourself.
Ama H. Vanniarachchy
Terrorism & tourism rhyme with each other. Yet they don't go well alongside despite some similiarities shared. If one booms it is doomsday to the other. It is sheer juxtaposition between the two lucrative industries in the city of the lights left in a sorry plight.
Indeewara Jayawardane