Gregory David Roberts
Gregory David Roberts
Gregory David Robertsis an Australian author best known for his novel Shantaram. He is a former heroin addict and convicted bank robber who escaped from Pentridge Prison in 1980 and fled to India, where he lived for ten years...
NationalityAustralian
ProfessionAuthor
CountryAustralia
shantaram knows
I don't know what frightens me more
book firsts shantaram
Shantaram is the second in the series of a quartet of novels that I have planned about my life but is the first to be written. The third book is a sequel to Shantaram, the first a prequel.
notorious has-beens
Because my life has been so notorious and so bad, it can overshadow my work.
stupid lazy making-money
Crime is stupid, lazy and weak. You can only exploit it and make money out of it.
finding-yourself trying way
The more you try to be like someone else, the more you find yourself standing in the way.
arbitrary demand facts
I look back, now, and I know that the naming moment, which seemed so insignificant then, which seemed to demand no more than an arbitrary and superstitious yes or no, was in fact a pivotal moment in my life.
dream real drinking
Let me explain something to you. Look around here. How many people do you count? Sixty, eighty, eighty people? Greeks, Germans, Italians, French, Americans. Tourists from everywhere. Eating, drinking, talking, laughing. And from Bombay - Indians and Iranians and Afghans and Arabs and Africans. But how many of these people have real power, real destiny, real dynamic for their place, and their time, and the lives of thousand of people? I will tell you - four. Four people in this room with power, and the rest are like the rest of the people everywhere: powerless, sleepers in the dream.
rivers promise stories
Do you know the story of the scorpion and the frog? You know, the frog agrees to carry the scorpion across the river, because the scorpion promises not to sting him. And then the scorpion stings the frog, half way across the river. The drowning frog asks him why he did it, when they'll both drown, and the scorpion says that he's a scorpion, and it's his nature to sting.
two movement helping
One, what would happen if everyone did this thing? Two, would this help or hinder the movement toward universal ultimate complexity?
simple men perfect
The man grinned back at me with that perfect sincerity we fear and call simple-minded.
breathing air water
The choking humidity makes amphibians of us all, in Bombay, breathing water in air; you learn to live with it, and you learn to like it, or you leave.
inspirational life loneliness
Some feelings sink so deep into the heart that only loneliness can help you find them again. Some truths are so painful that only shame can help you live with them. Some things are so sad that only your soul can do the crying for them.
medicine black kind
Friendship is also a kind of medicine, and the markets for it, too, are sometimes black.
journey example boards
The amount of force and violence necessary to board the train, for example was no less and no more than the amoount of politeness and consideration necessary to ensure that the cramped journey was as pleasant as possible afterwards. What is necessary? That was the unspoken but implied, and unavoidable question everywhere in India.