# Quote — Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

> 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. I realized, 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 have got, that freedom is a universe of possibility. And the choice you make, between hating and forgiving,can become the story of your life.

- Author: [Gregory David Roberts](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-david-roberts.md)
- Book: [Shantaram](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-david-roberts/shantaram.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Shantaram#Quotes) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-david-roberts/shantaram/it-took-me-a-long

## More from this book

> The only victory that really counts in prison is survival.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-david-roberts/shantaram/the-only-victory.md)

> Mistakes are like bad loves, the more you learn from them, the more you wish they’d never happened. - Karla

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-david-roberts/shantaram/mistakes-are-like.md)

> Men wage war for profit or principle, but they fight them for land and women.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-david-roberts/shantaram/men-wage-war.md)