My mother clutches at the collar of my shirt. I rub her back and feel her tears on my neck. It's been decades since our bodies have been this close. It's an odd sensation, like a torn ligament knitting itself back, lumpy and imperfect, usable as long as we know not to push it too hard.

— Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

No, Ashok. Love is not a tap. It flows and flows like blood from a wound, and you can die of it.

— Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Once I heard my mother say that each of us lives in a separate universe, one we have dreamed into being. We love people when their dream coincides with ours, the way two cutout designs laid one on top of the other might match. But dream worlds are not static like cutouts; sooner or later they change shape, leading to misunderstanding, loneliness and loss of love.

— Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Perhaps what distinguishes my characters is their courage and spirit and a certain stubbornness which enables them to keep going even when facing a setback. I think this developed organically as I wrote, but also it came out of a desire to portray women as powerful and intelligent forces in the world.

— Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Push away the past, that vessel in which all emotions curdle to regret.

— Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

She lifts a bowl of sheer and her thoughts, flittering like dusty sparrows in a brown back alley, turn a sudden kingfisher blue.

— Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

She lifts her eyes, and there is Death in the corner, but not like a king with his iron crown, as the epics claimed. Why, it is a giant brush loaded with white paint. It descends upon her with gentle suddenness, obliterating the shape of the world.

— Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Strong women, when respected, make the whole society stronger. One must be careful with such rapid changes, though, and make an effort to preserve, at the same time, the positive traditions of Indian culture.

— Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

The dream is not a drug but a way. Listen to where it can take you.

— Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

The power of a man is like a bull’s charge, while the power of a woman moves aslant, like a serpent seeking its prey. Know the particular properties of your power. Unless you use it correctly, it won’t get you what you want.” His words perplexed me. Wasn’t power singular and simple? In the world that I knew, men just happened to have more of it. (I hoped to change this.)

— Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni