Quotes by Sri Lankan Authors - Page 5

Maggie was ten years younger than him. Being cross-cousins, they lived in the same compound, in the same two houses that still existed. When their parents told him to take her for his wife, there was nothing for him to think deep into the matter. They simply obeyed their parents. Accordingly, she came over to sleep in his house. In this, manner they remained as man and wife for a period of over thirty years.
Swarnakanthi Rajapakse
Don't leave the dream, lead your dreams!
Akilnathan Logeswaran
We all have an old knot in the heart we wish to untie.
Michael Ondaatje
One day with knowing the reality is better than hundred years without knowing the reality.
Muditha Champika
My favourite definition of an intellectual: 'Someone who has been educated beyond his/her intelli
Arthur C. Clarke
If American misjudgments and actions that evolved into human tragedies—i.e., racism, sexism, and other bigotries—are guiding lights, the Chinese leadership must ultimately yield its power to the sovereignty of its people.
Patrick Mendis
. . . Moon-Watcher felt the first faint twinges of a new and potent emotion. It was a vague and diffuse sense of envy--of dissatisfaction with his life. He had no idea of its cause, still less of its cure; but discontent had come into his soul, and he had taken one small step toward humanity.
Arthur C. Clarke
Beautiful women have a following all their own. If that sounds misogynistic, I’m sorry, that’s the way the world works. Homer said the Greeks went to war over a woman. I can’t get a battle, but I can get a few hundred thousand views with the right face in a skirt.
Yudhanjaya Wijeratne
We have created our own fake world in order to satisfy our imagination through the illusion.
Nilantha Ilangamuwa
Sports can unite worlds, tear down walls and transcend race, the past, and all probability. Unlike life, sport matters.
Shehan Karunatilaka
There were, however, a few exceptions.One was Norma Dodsworth, the poet, who had not unpleasantly drunk but had been sensible enough to pass out before any violent action proved necessary. He had been deposited, not very gently, on the lawn, where it was hoped that a hyena would give him a rude awakening. For all practical purposes he could, therefore, be regarded as absent.
Arthur C. Clarke
It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value.
Arthur C. Clarke
Fear has become normal and is covered by the idea of “patriotism”.
Nilantha Ilangamuwa
The villagers considered it lucky to make the New Year's first money transaction with her because she was a prosperous person.
Swarnakanthi Rajapakse
What I have sought is to understand what has been said.
Ananda K. Coomaraswamy
I thought I was going to die. I wanted to die. And I thought if I was going to die I would die with you.Someone like you, young as I am, I saw so many dying near me in the last year. I didn’t feel scared. Icertainly wasn’t brave just now. I thought to myself, We have this villa this grass, we should have laindown together, you in my arms, before we died. I wanted to touch that bone at your neck, collarbone,it’s like a small hard wing under your skin. I wanted to place my fingers against it. I’ve always liked fleshthe colour of rivers and rocks or like the brown eye of a Susan, do you know what that flower is? Haveyou seen them? I am so tired, Kip, I want to sleep. I want to sleep under this tree, put my eye againstyour collarbone I just want to close my eyes without thinking of others, want to find the crook of a treeand climb into it and sleep. What a careful mind! To know which wire to cut. How did you know? Youkept saying I don’t know I don’t know, but you did. Right? Don’t shake, you have to be a still bed forme, let me curl up as if you were a good grandfather I could hug, I love the word ‘curl,’ such a slowword, you can’t rush it...
Michael Ondaatje
At first, you get your jaw broken but next time you know better than anyone how to protect yourself.
Gayendra Abeywardane
Unlike Saudi Arabia, Russia, and China, the United States was created by an enlightened band of Founding Fathers with a global vision for the new republic.
Patrick Mendis
..the happy hum of humanity.
Arthur C. Clarke
Peace without truth is nothing but an illusion – a deceptive misguidance which generates opportunities and problems to chew the sweet and bitter tastes of evil respectively.
Nilantha Ilangamuwa
Around three a.m. he feels a presence in the room. He sees, for the pulse of a moment, a figure at the foot of his bed, against the wall or painted onto it perhaps, not quite discernible in the darkness of foliage beyond the candlelight. He mutters something, something he had wanted to say, but there is silence and the slight brown figure, which could be just a night shadow, does not move. A poplar. A man with plumes. A swimming figure. And he would not be so lucky, he thinks, to speak to the young sapper again.tHe stays awake in any case this night, to see if the figure moves towards him. Ignoring the tablet that brings painlessness, he will remain awake till the light dies out and the smell of candle smoke drifts into his room and into the girl's room farther down the hall. If the figure turns around there will be paint on his back, where he slammed in grief against the mural of trees. When the candle dies out he will be able to see this.tHis hand reaches out slowly and touches his book and returns to his dark chest. Nothing else moves in the room. [298]
Michael Ondaatje
It's not about who you think you know, but about who actually knows you.
Akilnathan Logeswaran
If a lion cub thinks it is a kitten, it will grow up catching mice.
Dr. Asoka Jinadasa
Sri Lanka is a beautiful little island nation parked perilously close to India; a little too hot, a little too humid, and perhaps too expensive, but to its credit are fantastic beaches, strangely melancholy hills, and the ruins of kingdoms past.
Yudhanjaya Wijeratne
The Englishman left months ago, Hana, he's with the Bedouin or in some English garden with its phlox and shit.
Michael Ondaatje
When the day to day life is suppressing you, how could you put your moral values and will power to the realm of life?
Nilantha Ilangamuwa
A society is driven by “social fear” always produces the seeds of doubt and unhappiness.
Nilantha Ilangamuwa
Life in this form is one-time chance, death is the inevitable consequence for anyone who is born. The record of one’s death is the primary respect one could render to the lost one. Tears of all relatives of missing people are indeed flowing due to this invaluable action by the authority.
Nilantha Ilangamuwa
When the time has come, every leaf turns to face the sun!
Akilnathan Logeswaran
The Buddha, Christ and Mohammed had to rely on God and karma and human priests for judgement; we don’t. We have data. We have algorithms. We have Guidance. God is now available as an application, on your mobile phone or in the cloud, twenty four seven, three sixty five.
Yudhanjaya Wijeratne
The man on the top of the hierarchy has created social fear in order for us to accept him as the leader.
Nilantha Ilangamuwa
Today I prayed for Boston, for America, my home away from home. Today, I realized how lucky we Sri Lankans are to have peace in our country. How I feel today, hearing of the bombs going off in the city brings back memories of how I used to feel four years ago in Sri Lanka when the LTTE was setting off bombs all around Colombo. That feeling I used to get when I hear about a bomb blast, the goosebumps, the school evacuation drills, the breaking news footage, and most of all, that fear we Sri Lankans used to feel, every second of everyday, it all came back to me today. Thank you God for bringing peace to my country, look after America the way you did Sri Lanka.
Thisuri Wanniarachchi
Parents need to realize that the world is getting complicated every second. With new problems, new diseases, new habits. They have to realize the vast probability of their kids being victims of this age, this complicated era. Your kids could be exposed to problems that no kind of therapy can help. Your kids could be brainwashed by themselves to believe in insane theories that drive them crazy. Most kids will go through this stage. The lucky ones will understand. They will grow out of them. The most unlucky ones will live in these problems. Grow in them and never move forward. They will cut themselves, overdose on drugs, take up excessive drinking and smoking, for the slightest problems in their lives. You can't blame these kids for not being thankful or satisfied with what they have. Their mentality eludes them from the reality.
Thisuri Wanniarachchi
What many people do not understand is: It's not about who you think you know, but about who actually knows you. So better start giving today, be it giving everything at your job, or giving out lunch to that man. Start giving, and the world will know your true character!
Akilnathan Logeswaran
The first sentence of every novel should be: Trust me, this will take time but there is order here, very faint, very human.
Michael Ondaatje
China is constantly reinventing itself and so is the United States.
Patrick Mendis
This had not endeared him to exobiologists such as Dr Perera, who took exactly the opposite view. To them, the only purpose of the Universe was the production of intelligence, and they were apt to talk sneeringly about purely astronomical phenomena, 'Mere dead matter' was one of their favourite phrases.
Arthur C. Clarke
...a well-stocked mind is safe from boredom.
Arthur C. Clarke
I believe this. When we meet those we fall in love with, there is an aspect of our spirit that is historian, a bit of a pedant who reminisces or remembers a meeting when the other has passed by innocently…but all parts of the body must be ready for the other, all atoms must jump in one direction for desire to occur.
Michael Ondaatje
You may kill a fire. And everything you know falls to dust and ash. Yet the remarkable treasure in this seemingly hopeless pile, is hidden deep within. The burning embers incarnate the perpetual desire to go from spark to flame.
Akilnathan Logeswaran
This is the beginning of what we will come to call the Upstairs-Downstairs, Linga-Singha wars.
Nayomi Munaweera
I am so proud of my father; he is the biggest example of success and courage I have ever seen in my life. He is the emperor of my kingdom. Of course, my father IS an emperor, his name is Asoka, the greatest emperor ruled in India. Moreover, as the name says, he is ‘without sorrow’ and the slayer of our sorrows.
Ama H. Vanniarachchy
Men had always been the reciters of poetry in the desert.
Michael Ondaatje
There's no real objection to escapism, in the right places... We all want to escape occasionally. But science fiction is often very far from escapism, in fact you might say that science fiction is escape into reality... It's a fiction which does concern itself with real issues: the origin of man; our future. In fact I can't think of any form of literature which is more concerned with real issues, reality.
Arthur C. Clarke
I just realized that sleep sometimes is the only precious wage for the hard working man.
Akilnathan Logeswaran
This last night we tear into each other, as if to wound, as if to find the key to everything before morning.
Michael Ondaatje
Humanity is not only ‘great acts’ spending thousands, putting your name on headlines. Humanity is to be kind to every living being, to be compassionate towards all, even to the tiniest animal, seen and unseen. Some people consider killing ants or pest normal, but I find it is an act of extreme cruelty. By killing them you violate their rights to live. We must remember that the earth and the universe belongs to all of us. We are just another species out of millions of species, and we share the universe with them and most importantly, remember that we belong to each other.
Ama H. Vanniarachchy
It is a smokescreen if someone believes that they can make change without identifying the root causes which influence social disorder.
Nilantha Ilangamuwa
Every living thing is sacred to me. Compassion and love can heal this world, which is set on fire of violence and hatred. I will teach the world about compassion, and end the suffering by halting these floods of sorrow. Said Prince Siddhartha and began his journey of saving the man kind.” ,
Ama H. Vanniarachchy
No doubt, a father he is the most respected man in our lives, the most admired person. He is the protector, and the guardian of our lives.
Ama H. Vanniarachchy
We own the country we grow up in, or we are aliens and invaders.
Michael Ondaatje
We would sneer sometimes at how pointless it all was, all those bourgeois souls wrapping themselves in luxury, isolating themselves from the raw edges of the word; and in between puffs, we would smile, and dream of owning those streets, dreaming the same dreams that we scorned others for.
Yudhanjaya Wijeratne
In spite of her desire for a contained universe, her life felt scattered, full of many small moments, without great purpose. That is what she thought, though what is most untrustworthy about our natures and self-worth is how we differe in our own realities from the way we are seen by others.
Michael Ondaatje
She talks in her most sedate voice, attempting to alleviate out fears, soothe our anxiety. She knows that if we are to survive watching this war from a distance, as spectators, we do not have the privilege of indignation or anxiety.
Nayomi Munaweera
He knows that the only way he can accept losing her is if he can continue to hold her or be held by her. If they can somehow nurse each other out of this. Not with a wall.
Michael Ondaatje
Terrorism is just a whole other level of anger management issues.
Thisuri Wanniarachchi
The question has often been asked; Is Buddhism a religion or a philosophy? It does not matter what you call it. Buddhism remains what it is whatever label you may put on it. The label is immaterial. Even the label 'Buddhism' which we give to the teachings of the Buddha is of little importance. The name one gives is inessential.... In the same way Truth needs no label: it is neither Buddhist, Christian, Hindu nor Moslem. It is not the monopoly of anybody. Sectarian labels are a hindrance to the independent understanding of Truth, and they produce harmful prejudices in men's minds.
Walpola Rahula
Their promise, my children's possibilities, still linger in our home.
Sonali Deraniyagala
Love dissolves the separation between ‘you’ and ‘me’.
Dr. Asoka Jinadasa
Don't be nervous..be Excited....
gayan fonseka