Arundhati Roy quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Arundhati Roy

Arundhati Roy Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Arundhati Roy on Wise Famous Quotes.

It was raining when Rahel came back to Ayemenem. Slanting silver ropes slammed into loose earth, ploughing it up like gun-fire.

His gratitude widened his smile and bent his back.

Pointed in the wrong direction, trapped outside their own history and unable to retrace their steps because their footprints had been swept away.

She woke to the sound of his heart knocking against his chest. As though it was searching for a way out.

But can we, should we, let apprehensions about the future immobilize us in the present?

And once again, only the Small Things were said. The Big Things lurked unsaid inside.

She thought of Chacko's laugh, and a smile stayed in her eyes for a long time.

[Are we] far more comfortable with the idea of poor people killing themselves in despair than with the idea of them fighting back?

Acceptance spells death to a writer.

Kochu Maria, the vinegar-hearted, short-tempered, midget cook, were

Politeness. Obedience. Loyalty. Intelligence. Courtesy. Efficiency.

When you recreate the image of man, why repeat God's mistakes?

The God of Loss.
The God of Small Things.
He left no footprints in the sand, no ripples in water, no image in mirrors.

I am an artist and a writer, and I do think that one always places oneself in the picture to see where one fits.

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.

Is globalization about 'the eradication of world poverty,' or is it a mutant variety of colonialism, remote controlled and digitally operated?

This was the trouble with families. Like invidious doctors, they knew just where it hurt.

Humbling was a nice word, Rahel thought. Humbling along without a care in the world

A fee clarified things. Disjuncted sex from love. Needs from feelings.

Some days he walked along the banks of the river that smelled of shit and pesticides bought with World Bank loans.

For the first time in her life, Tilo felt that her body had enough room to accomodate all of its organs.

Here they learned to Wait. To Watch. To think thoughts and not voice them.

Why should propaganda be the exclusive preserve of the Western media? Just because they do it better?

.. how history negotiates its terms and collects its dues from those who break its laws.

The people who created the crisis will not be the ones that come up with a solution

[Internationa] Aid is just another praetorian business enterprise.

From now on it is not dying we must fear, but living.

Empathy may be the single most important quality that must be nurtured to give peace a fighting chance.

In a determined reversal of her inherent nature, Kochu Maria now, as a policy, hardly ever believed anything that anybody said.

There's no division on my bookshelf between fiction and nonfiction. As far as I'm concerned, fiction is about the truth.

To stay quiet is as political an act as speaking out.

Our lungs are gradually being depleted of oxygen. Perhaps it's time to use whatever breath remains in our bodies to say: Open the bloody gates.

Rahel knew that this had happened because she had been hoping that it wouldn't. She hadn't learned to control her Hopes yet.

Argentina & Iraq have been decimated by the same process with different weapons; an IMF cheque & cruise missiles.

Democracy is the Free World's whore, willing to dress up, dress down, willing to satisfy a whole range of tastes.

Sleep came to them, quick and easy, like money to millionaires.

Of the four things that were Possible in Human Nature, Rahel thought that Infinnate Joy sounded the saddest.

There is nothing that pleases me more than a beautiful sentence ... It is something that satisfies me.

Ammu said that human beings were creatures of habit, and it was amazing the kind of things one could get used to.

Coercing a woman out of a burka is as bad as coercing her into one. It's not about the burka. It's about the coercion.

She wondered how to un-know certain things, certain specific things that she knew but did not wish to know

For the South African White minority, neo-liberalism is apartheid with a clean conscience, called Democracy.

Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.

Pigs are horses. Girls are boys. War is peace.

The world's 'freeest' country has the highest number in prison.

Wars are never fought for altruistic reasons.

Novels are such mysterious and amorphous and tender things.

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.

Growth, 60 percent of India's workforce is self-employed, and 90 percent of India's labor force works in the unorganized sector.11

Terrorism is the symptom, not the disease.

I am a Maoist sympathiser. I'm not a Maoist ideologue, because the communist movements in history have been just as destructive as capitalism.

Fiction is the most joyous, beautiful, sophisticated, wonderful thing in the world.

Neither question nor answer was meant as anything more than a polite preamble to conversation.

She kept her doors and windows locked, unless she was using them.

Capitalism is destroying the planet. The two old tricks that dug it out of past crises
War and Shopping
simply will not work.

On Rahel's heart Pappachi's moth snapped open its somber wings. Out. In. And lifted its legs. Up. Down.

It's odd how those who dismiss the peace movement as Utopian proffer the most absurdly dreamy reasons for war.

What came for them? Not death. Just the end of living.

Enemies can't break your spirit, only friends can.

Et tu, Caesar? Then fall, Caesar.
Et tu, Estha? Then fall, Estha.

The moment I saw her, a part of me walked out of my body and wrapped itself around her. And there it still remains.

Now they were old.
Old enough.
A viable, die-able age.

Rahel never wrote to him. There are things that you can't do - like writing letters to a part of yourself.

Her collarbones like wings that spread from the base of her throat to the ends of her shoulders. A bird held down by skin

Literature is the opposite of a nuclear bomb.

There is a war that makes us adore our conquerors and despise ourselves.

The tired wisdom of knowing that what goes around eventually comes around.

Pity the nation that has to silence its writers for speaking their minds.

Excitement Always Leads to Tears.

Either way, change will come. It could be bloody, or it could be beautiful. It depends on us.

... he remained restrained and strangely composed. It was a composure born of extreme provocation. It stemmed from a lucidity that lies beyond rage.

Only the Small Things are ever said. The Big Things lurk unsaid inside.

And on Ammu's road (to Age and Death) a small, sunny meadow appeared. Copper grass spangled with blue butterflies. Beyond it, an abyss.

they asked the poor what it was like to be poor, the hungry what it was like to be hungry, the homeless what it was like to be homeless.

All three of them bonded by the certain, separate knowledge that they had loved a man to death.

Of course, there's an alternative to terrorism: it's called justice.

Some things come with their own punishments.

Ammu quickly learned to recognize and despise the ugly face of sympathy. They ... gloated. She fought off the urge to slap them.

And there it was again. Another religion turned against itself. Another edifice constructed by the human mind, decimated by human nature.

Let's leave one alive so that it can be lonely.

Red ants that had a sour farty smell when they were squashed.

It could be argued that it began long before Christianity arrived in a boat and seeped into Kerala like tea from a teabag.

He gathered her into the cave of his body. (Roy,338)

There are things that you can't do - like writing letters to a part of yourself. To your feet or hair. Or heart.

Who can know from the word goodbye what kind of parting is in store for us.

Change is one thing. Acceptance is another.

The American people ought to know that it is not them, but their government's policies, that are so hated.

Ammu's tears made everything that had so far seemed unreal, real.

Debating Imperialism is a bit like debating the pros and cons of rape. What can we say? That we really miss it?

the connection between GDP growth and jobs is a myth.

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.

Socrates asked the key question:
why should we be moral?

There are things that can be forgotten. And things that cannot - that sit on dusty shelves like stuffed birds with baleful, sideways staring eyes.

The TV channels never ran out of sponsorship for their live telecasts of despair. They never ran out of despair

Non-violence is a piece of theatre. You need an audience. What can you do when you have no audience?

I kind of resent the idea that the whole world has to be interested in the American elections.

Although you know that one day you will die, you live as if you won't.

It was a time when the unthinkable became the thinkable and the impossible really happened

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.

I'm Popeye the sailor man dum dum I live in a cara-van dum dum I op-en the door And fall-on the floor I'm Popeye the sailor man dum dum