Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
There can be nothing more humiliating for a writer of fiction to have to do than restate a case that has already been made.
He folded his fear into a perfect rose. He held it out in the palm of his hand. She took it from him and put it in her hair.
...a political struggle that does not have women at the heart of it, above it, below it, and within it is no struggle at all.
Today, we seem to be striving towards injustice, applauding it as though it's a worthy dream, made sacred by the caste system.
One of the reasons some people get so angry with me is because I have the space now that a lot of others who think like me don't.
That it really began in the days when the Love Laws were made. The laws that lay down who should be loved, and how. And how much.
I am completely a loner. In my head I want to feel I can be anywhere. There is a sort of recklessness that being a loner allows me.
The U.S. corporate media, otherwise known as the "free press," is that hollow pillar on which contemporary American democracy rests.
Sometimes there's truth in old cliches. There can be no real peace without justice. And without resistance there will be no justice.
An old-growth forest, a mountain range or a river valley is more important and certainly more loveable than any country will ever be.
Three-quarters of India lives on the edge of the market economy. You can't tell them that only those who can afford water can have it.
Many people have accused me of having a romantic view, whereas I personally I feel sorry for those who have lost romance in their lives.
Cage the People, Free the Money. The only thing that is allowed to move freely - unimpeded - around the world today is money... capital.
And there it was again. Another religion turned against itself. Another edifice constructed by the human mind, decimated by human nature.
Peace, Inc. is sometimes as worrying as War, Inc. It's a way of managing public anger. We're all being managed, and we don't even know it.
Novels are such mysterious and amorphous and tender things. And here we are with our crash helmets on, with concertina wire all around us.
If he touched her, he couldn't talk to her, if he loved her he couldn't leave, if he spoke he couldn't listen, if he fought he couldn't win.
Stable markets, unstable world. Efficiency. Everybody hears about it. It's enough to make you want to be pro-inefficiency and pro-corruption.
I think one of the saddest things that's happening to literature is that it's getting over-simplified by this diet of simple political ideas.
I am a Maoist sympathiser. I'm not a Maoist ideologue, because the communist movements in history have been just as destructive as capitalism.
Is globalization about 'the eradication of world poverty,' or is it a mutant variety of colonialism, remote controlled and digitally operated?
Wars are never fought for altruistic reasons. They're usually fought for hegemony, for business. And then of course there's the business of war.
And the air was full of Thoughts and Things to Say. But at times like these, only the Small Things are ever said. Big Things lurk unsaid inside.
Margaret Kochamma's tiny, ordered life relinquished itself to this truly baroque bedlam with the quiet gasp of a warm body entering a chilly sea.
Pointed in the wrong direction, trapped outside their own history and unable to retrace their steps because their footprints had been swept away.
If we were to lose the ability to be emotional, if we were to lose the ability to be angry, to be outraged, we would be robots. And I refuse that.
Even capitalists must surely admit, that intellectually at least, socialism is a worthy opponent. It imparts intelligence even to its adversaries.
… he remained restrained and strangely composed. It was a composure born of extreme provocation. It stemmed from a lucidity that lies beyond rage.
If you ask me what is at the core of what I write, it isn't about 'rights', it's about justice. Justice is a grand, beautiful, revolutionary idea.
NGOs are dangerous. They do what the missionaries used to do in Colonial times. They are Trojan Horses. The worse the situation, the more the NGOs.
If you're not religious, then look at it this way. This world of ours is four thousand, six hundred million years old. It could end in an afternoon.
He could do only one thing at a time. If he held her, he couldn't kiss her. If he kissed her, he couldn't see her. If he saw her, he couldn't feel her.
There are people who have comfortable relationships with power and people with natural antagonism to power. I think it's easy to guess where I am in that.
Do you think that the people of South Africa, or anywhere on the continent of Africa, or India, or Pakistan are longing to be kicked around all over again?
As a woman who grew up in a village in India, I've spent my whole life fighting tradition. There's no way that I want to be a traditional Indian housewife.
Nilekani's technocratic obsession with gathering data is consistent with that of Bill Gates, as though lack of information is what is causing world hunger.
Fascism itself can only be turned away if all those who are outraged by it show a commitment to social justice that equals the intensity of their indignation.
Dams are the temples of secular India and almost worshipped. They are huge, wet cement flags that wave in our minds. They're the symbol of nationalism to many.
The mullahs of the Islamic world and the mullahs of the Hindu world and the mullahs of the Christian world are all on the same side. And we are against them all.
I'm not somebody who plans my life. In fact, I don't know what's going to happen here in India, it's such a strange climate here at the moment. So very worrying.
In a country like India, the British were only able to rule the country because it had completely co-opted the elite of the country, who did their work for them.
They looked at each other. They weren't thinking anymore. The time for that had come and gone. Smashed smiles lay ahead of them. But that would be later. Lay Ter.
Sometimes I think the world is divided into those who have a comfortable relationship with power and those who have a naturally adversarial relationship with power.
As Estha stirred the thick jam he thought Two Thoughts and the Two Thoughts he thought were these: a) Anything can happen to anyone. and b) It is best to be prepared.
To understand history,' Chacko said, 'we have to go inside and listen to what they're saying. And look at the books and the pictures on the wall. And smell the smells.
In India, whichever language you write in, the possibility of people not understanding irony or not understanding [remains there]. This as a writer is most terrifying!
The idea of "human rights," for example - sometimes it bothers me. Not in itself, but because the concept of human rights has replaced the much grander idea of justice.
When she listened to songs that she loved on the radio, something stirred inside her. A liquid ache spread under her skin, and she walked out of the world like a witch.
By then Esthappen and Rahel had learned that the world had other ways of breaking men. They were already familiar with the smell. Sicksweet. Like old roses on a breeze.
I'm a social cripple in a cocktail party. My idea of a nightmare is people standing very elegantly dressed in a room with a drink in their hand. I'm just like, 'Urghh!'