- Cyrus Mistry: You know how to play Chess, Mr. Sethna?
- Fardounjee Sethna: Used to. I wasn't a Grandmaster or anything. But saala my father told me one thing about life from this game. He used to say, "Always remember, son. Once the game is over, the King and the Pawn go back into the same box."
- Cyrus Mistry: [narrating] As children we never imagined that there was a world out there that other people spent all their lives grabbing at; As much as we wanted to breakout into that world, nobody ever told us that the more we grabbed, the more we would lose a few pieces of ourselves. It was inevitable, I guess.
- Cyrus Mistry: [narrating when being let in by the Sethnas in Panchgani] It was really as simple as that. This would be my home for the following year. At first I thought it may have been Dinshaw's need for a pottery assistant, which he had advertised for. But somehow Katy's eagerness to allow me in, told me that I'd be doing a lot more than just getting my hands dirty with clay.
- Cyrus Mistry: [narrating] His wife on the other hand, had plans of her own.
- [pause]
- Cyrus Mistry: Katy was a piece of work. My eyes would rarely get past her swish of hip and bounce of breast. I would blush profusely and she would love it. Most people make eye-contact; Katy liked to make breast-contact every chance she'd get. Her tits were the front desk, her PR troops and they were oblivious to my discomfort.
- Cyrus Mistry: [narrating] Leo Tolstoy once said, 'All happy families resemble one another; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way'. This is about the Sethna family. The two brothers, their old father Fardoonjee, and a few variants thrown in for good measure. This is my side of their story.
- Girl with doll: [talking to the doll while Cyrus is climbing the stairs] Upon the stairs I saw a man, who wasn't there; who wasn't there the other day, I wished to god he'd go away.