When the world is itself draped in the mantle of night, the mirror of the mind is like the sky in which thoughts twinkle like stars.

- Delhi, Khushwant Singh

Morality is a matter of money. Poor people cannot afford to have morals. So they have religion.

- Khushwant Singh

Freedom is for the educated people who fought for it. We were slaves of the English, now we will be slaves of the educated Indians&mdashor the Pakistanis.

- Train to Pakistan, Khushwant Singh

The last to learn of gossip are the parties concerned

- Train to Pakistan, Khushwant Singh

Your principle should be to see everything and say nothing. The world changes so rapidly that if you want to get on you cannot afford to align yourself with any person or point of view.

- Khushwant Singh

We are of the mysterious East. No proof, just faith. No reason, just faith.

- Train To Pakistan, Khushwant Singh

Maorality is a matter of money. Poor people cannot afford to have morals. So they have religion

- Train to Pakistan, Khushwant Singh

I asked my soul: What is Delhi? She replied: The world is the body and Delhi its life. Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib

- Delhi: A Novel, Khushwant Singh

But big peoples illnesses are always made to sound big. The simple shutting and opening of the royal arse-hole was made to sound as if the world was coming to an end.

- Delhi: A Novel, Khushwant Singh

Consciousness of the bad is an essential prerequisite to the promotion of the good.

- Train To Pakistan, Khushwant Singh

If the blanket of mans fate has been woven black, even the waters of Zam Zam and Kausar cannot wash it white.

- Delhi: A Novel, Khushwant Singh

When you have counted eighty years and more, Time and Fate will batter at your door But if you should survive to be a hundred, Your life will be death to the very core.

- Delhi: A Novel, Khushwant Singh

Poor people cannot afford to have morals. So they have religion.

- Train To Pakistan, Khushwant Singh

The doer must do only when the receiver is ready to receive. Otherwise, the act is wasted.

- Train To Pakistan, Khushwant Singh

We also knew that it was in the nature of an empty stomach to produce illusions of grandeur.

- Delhi: A Novel, Khushwant Singh

So many gods, so many creeds, so many paths that wind and wind When just the art of being kind is all that the sad world needs.

- The End Of India, Khushwant Singh

One Sikh may argue with one Sikh. One Sikh must never argue with two Sikhs&ndashcertainly not after dark.

- Delhi: A Novel, Khushwant Singh

Under the circumstances the only honest answer an intelligent person can give to the question &lsquoIs there a God? is to say, &lsquoI do not know.

- The End Of India, Khushwant Singh

Little mother of ancient days: Thou hast cunningly dyed thy hair but consider That thy bent back will never be straight!

- Delhi: A Novel, Khushwant Singh

A Turk for toughness, for hands that never tire An Indian for her rounded bosom bursting with milk A Persian for her tight crotch and her coquetry An Uzbeg to thrash as a lesson for the three.

- Delhi: A Novel, Khushwant Singh

The great tragedy of life is not that men perish, but that they cease to love.

- Khushwant Singh

His mind was like the delicate spring of a watch, which quivers for several hours after it has been touched.

- Khushwant Singh

The need of our times is to revive the Nehruvian notion of secularism.

- Khushwant Singh

Men have many faults, women only two: Everything they say, and everything they do.

- Khushwant Singh on Women, Khushwant Singh

The eye hath ruined me, the heart complained. &lsquoThe heart has lost me, the eye replied. I know not which told the truth, which lied Between, the two, it was Meer who died.

- Delhi: A Novel, Khushwant Singh

In a country which had accepted caste distinctions for many centuries, inequality had become an inborn mental concept.

- Train To Pakistan, Khushwant Singh

In the absence of men all women are chaste.

- Khushwant Singh on Women, Khushwant Singh

The Indian peasant is the worlds champion shitter. Stacks of chappaties and mounds of mustard leaf-mash down the hatch twice a day stacks of shit a.m. and p.m.

- Delhi: A Novel, Khushwant Singh

How downhearted was Meer at night! Whatever came to his lips became a cry for help. When he started on the path of love, he was like fire Now its ended he is a heap of ashes on a pyre.

- Delhi: A Novel, Khushwant Singh

Freedom is for the educated people who fought for it. We were slaves of the English, now we will be slaves of the educated Indians—or the Pakistanis.

- Khushwant Singh

A Sikh woman takes the surname Kaur on baptism. Kaur was also a common surname for Rajput women and means both a princess and lioness.

- A History of the Sikhs, Khushwant Singh

If the blanket of man’s fate has been woven black, even the waters of Zam Zam and Kausar cannot wash it white.

- Khushwant Singh

One Sikh may argue with one Sikh. One Sikh must never argue with two Sikhs–certainly not after dark.

- Khushwant Singh

With their weapons. One struck it with his

- Khushwant Singh

Under the circumstances the only honest answer an intelligent person can give to the question ‘Is there a God?’ is to say, ‘I do not know.

- Khushwant Singh

How much of what he told me of his past was true and how much he made up to hold my interest.

- Khushwant Singh

We are a nation of fence-sitters, face-flatterers and back-biters.

- Khushwant Singh

In America, they make a lot of fuss over little things.

- Khushwant Singh

Morality, Meet Singhji, is a matter of money. Poor people cannot afford to have morals. So they have religion.

- Khushwant Singh

I believe that the essence of every person’s religion should be the endeavour not to hurt another person or living thing and to preserve his environment.

- Khushwant Singh