Each day has a color, a smell.

I am a Hindu, brought up mostly in India.

Often, others see you, as you see yourself

I guess there's a lot we hope for that never happens.

There is something in human beings that loves stories.

To me, characters are at the heart of great literature.

Your childhood hunger is the one that never leaves you.

I want people to be sensitive about how women feel and think.

To make money for college, I worked in our college dining room.

I like being myself. Maybe just slimmer, with a few less wrinkles.

The dream is not a drug but a way. Listen to where it can take you.

...don't create snakes out of ropes. You have enough to worry about.

I took a little break after 'The Palace of Illusions' to clear my head.

The heart itself is beyond control. That is its power, and its weakness.

I hate it when people throw away food - I've seen too many hungry people.

Fenugreek, Tuesday's spice, when the air is green like mosses after rain.

Expectations are like hidden rocks in your path , All they do is trip you up

Tomorrow is another day. I've got plenty of things to worry about right now.

Everytime i have turned the page he re-enters my life as awkward as postscript

I show women growing, changing, becoming stronger in many kinds of situations.

But maybe as I get older, I begin to see beauty where I least expected it before.

If it is good literature, the reader and the writer will connect. It's inevitable.

How can I forgive if you are not ready to give up that which caused you to stumble?

A book can be wonderful and powerful and accessible and artful all at the same time.

Girls have to be toughened so they can survive a world that presses harder on women.

With the strong women I write about, I want to create a sense of strong possibilities.

To some extent, I draw on what I see around me; in other places, I imagine what I write.

I am buoyant and expansive and uncontainable--but I always was so, only I never knew it!

Or is this how humans survive, shrugging off history, immersing themselves in the moment?

Monday is the day of silence, day of the whole white mung bean, which is sacred to the moon.

A dream is a telegram from the hidden world...Only a fool or an illiterate person ignores it.

I have no particular reader in mind, but a passionate desire to tell an honest, moving story.

Because ultimately only the witness -- and not the actors -- knows the truth (Vyasa to Draupadi)

In life, it's best not to take anything for free - unless it's from someone who wishes you well.

I want my books to force readers to recognise the fact that a woman is a human being just like them.

There was an unexpected freedom in finding out that one wasn't as important as one had always assumed!

India lends itself well to fictionalization, but ultimately, it all depends on the writer's imagination.

There is no conflict in looking good. You buy things you need, and then you do something good for society.

I feel I can express the nuances of the Bengali lifestyle and ways of thinking better than other cultures.

A problem becomes a problem only if you believe it to be so. And often others see you as you see yourself.

We even had a different word for Christmas in my language, Bengali: Baradin, which literally meant 'big day.'

I had friends who died in the 9/11 tragedy; some of my friends lost family members in the aftermath of Godhra.

Dissolving differences has always been an important motive for my writing, right from 'The Mistress of Spices.'

The Mahabharata might have been a great and heroic battle, but there are no winners. The losers, of course, lose.

Everyone has a story. I don't believer anyone can go through life without encountering at least one amazing thing.

I wrote 'Mistress of Spices' at an unusual time when I had a near-death experience after the birth of my second son.

Can't you ever be serious?' I said, mortified. 'It's difficult,' he said. 'There's so little in life that's worth it.

'The Mahabharata,' which inspired my novel 'Palace of Illusions,' also has many stories embedded within the main tale.

Everyone breathes in air, but it's a wise person who knows when to use that air to speak and when to exhale in silence.

A kshatriya woman's highest purpose in life is to support the warriors in her life: her father, brother, husband and sons.

Share This Page