... the floor was a stone slab of coolness, an expanse of warm ice that would not melt. - Amit Chaudhuri

…There are many ways of defining the modern but one is to say that an urban space, a man-made space, has some of the energy, wildness, unpredictability and randomness that we usually associate with nature. In another age, somebody might speak with the same kind of excitement about nature as the modernist does about the city…

This is what's beautiful about staying in a club or hotel: you're invisible, as is your neighbour.

... a severe woman with a patient but unprevaricating gaze, who turned out to be Indira Gandhi.