Best Book Lines

Last week I started a new thing called Best Book Lines. Every week(?) I'll try to post one of my Best Book Lines. Last week I posted my ALL TIME fav. You can check it out here.

This week I'd like to share one with you from a book I've just started called Shantaram. Written by Gregory David Roberts, his semi-biographical novel. Here's an idea about the life of Mr. Roberts, to give you an idea of what it's about -

Gregory David Roberts was born in Melbourne. Sentenced to 19 years in prison for a series of armed robberies, he escaped and spent 8 of his fugitive years in Bombay - where he established a free medical clinic for slum-dwellers, and worked as a counterfeiter, a smuggler, gunrunner, and street soldier for a branch of the Bombay mafia. Recaptured, he served out his sentence, and established a successful multimedia company upon his release.
-Taken from the back of the book

Now, I know I've just started reading the book, but it's the first paragraph that just jumped out and grabbed me by the throat -

It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured.
-Shantaram, by Gregory David Roberts

While the seeming contradictions between love, fate and being tortured referenced in this line is the first thing I noticed, the poetry of the line is what really grabbed me. It goes on -

I realised, somehow, through the screaming in my mind, that even in that shackled, bloody helplessness, I was still free: free to hate the men who were torturing me, or to forgive them. It doesn't sound like much, I know. But in the flinch and bite of the chain, when it's all you've got, that freedom is a universe of possibility. And the choice you make, between hating and forgiving, can become the story of your life.
-Shantaram, by Gregory David Roberts

It's those last lines that really seal it for me, especially the last one,...'And the choice you make, between hating and forgiving, can become the story of your life'... Because that is truly what I believe, and what I believe most people don't understand.

Let's hope the rest of the book is as good!

If you love books as much as I do, I'd love to hear some of your Best Book Lines. Leave them in the comments, or do your own post and pop a link in the comments here so I can check 'em out!