Quotessence
Home / Authors / Arundhati Roy
Arundhati Roy

Arundhati Roy Quotes

Author

Filter quotes by topic

AllPeopleWorldWarWayIndiaThinkingIfsCountryHas BeensStatesKnowsWantGovernmentHumansPoliticalShouldWeaponsAmericaDemocracyFighting

Famous Arundhati Roy Quotes

“Because of the caste system, because of the fact that there is no social link between those who make the decisions and those who suffer the decisions, the Indian government just goes ahead and does what it wants. The people also assume that this is their lot, their karma, what was written. It's quite an efficient way of doing things. Therefore, India has a very good reputation in the world as a democracy, as a government that cares, that has just got too much on its hands, whereas, in fact, it's actually creating the problems.”

PeopleWorldWayWantDoeFactsProblemHandsGovernmentCareSufferingSocialDecisionDemocracyToo MuchWrittenCreatingIndiaAssumingVery GoodKarmaReputationIndianLinksEfficientCastesCaste SystemGood Reputation
Author:Arundhati Roy
Create image

“I am an artist and a writer, and I do think that one always places oneself in the picture to see where one fits. I left home when I was sixteen and lived in places where it was very easy for me to have fallen the other way. I could have been on the large convoy because I was a woman and I was alone. In India, that's not a joke. I could have ended up very, very badly. I'm lucky that I didn't.”

ThinkingWayHas BeensHomeArtistLeftEasyFitLuckyJokesIndiaOneselfFallenCould Have BeenSixteen
Author:Arundhati Roy
Create image

“We're supposed to forget whatever happened in the past because 9/11 is where history begins. Okay, since 2001, how many wars have been started, how many countries have been destroyed? So now ISIS is the new evil - but how did that evil begin? Is it more evil to do what ISIS is doing, which is to go around massacring people - mainly, but not only, Shi'a - slitting throats? By the way, the US-backed militias are doing similar things, except they don't show beheadings of white folks on TV.”

PeopleWayHas BeensWarCountryShowsPastEvilWhiteForgetHappenedTvsOkayFolksDestroyedThroatIsisMilitia
Author:Arundhati Roy
Create image

“When you think of how much violence, how much blood... how much has been destroyed to create the great nations, America, Australia, Britain, Germany, France, Belgium - even India, Pakistan. Having destroyed so much to make them, we must have nuclear weapons to protect them - and climate change to hold up their way of life... a two-pronged annihilation project.”

ThinkingWayHas BeensTwoAmericaNationsViolenceBloodProtectProjectsWeaponsIndiaClimateClimate ChangeNuclearDestroyedFranceGermanyBritainAustraliaNuclear WeaponsPakistanAnnihilationBelgiumGreat NationsIndia Pakistan
Author:Arundhati Roy
Create image

“They would grow up grappling with ways of living with what happened. They would try to tell themselves that in terms of geological time it was an insignificant event. Just a blink of the Earth Woman's eye. That Worse Things had happened. That Worse Things kept happening. But they would find no comfort in the thought.”

WayTryingEyeEarthGrowsTermGrowing UpHappenedEventsComfortHappeningsInsignificantBlinkGrapplingGeological Time
Book:The God of Small Things
Create image

“The [Booker] prize was actually responsible in many ways for my political activism. I won this thing and I was suddenly the darling of the new emerging Indian middle class – they needed a princess. They had the wrong woman. I had this light shining on me at the time, and I knew that I had the stage to say something about what was happening in my country. What is exciting about what I have done since is that writing has become a weapon, some kind of ammunition.”

WayWritingKindCountryDoneLightPoliticalClassMiddleStageNeededWeaponsHappeningsExcitingResponsibleShiningActivismIndianMiddle ClassPrizePrincessDarlingEmergingAmmunitionPolitical Activism
Author:Arundhati Roy
Create image

“Writers imagine that they cull stories from the world. I'm beginning to believe that vanity makes them think so. That it's actually the other way around. Stories cull writers from the world. Stories reveal themselves to us. The public narrative, the private narrative - they colonize us. They commission us. They insist on being told. Fiction and nonfiction are only different techniques of story telling. For reasons that I don't fully understand, fiction dances out of me, and nonfiction is wrenched out by the aching, broken world I wake up to every morning.”

ThinkingWorldWayBelieveDifferentReasonStoriesFictionMorningImagineBrokenWake UpTechniqueVanityNarrativeNonfictionImagine ThatEvery MorningFiction And NonfictionBroken World
Book:War Talk
Create image

“Anything's possible in Human Nature," Chacko said in his Reading Aloud voice. Talking to the darkness now, suddenly insensitive to his little fountain-haired niece. "Love. Madness. Hope. Infinite joy." Of the four things that were Possible in Human Nature, Rahel thought that Infinnate Joy sounded the saddest. Perhaps because of the way Chacko said it. Infinnate Joy. With a church sound to it. Like a sad fish with fins all over.”

WayHumansLittlesSaidJoyReadingSoundVoiceChurchTalkingDarknessFourHuman NatureMadnessInfiniteFishesFountainSaddestInsensitiveNieceFinsReading Aloud
Book:The God of Small Things
Create image

“Memory was that woman on the train. Insane in the way she sifted through dark things in a closet and emerged with the most unlikely ones - a fleeting look, a feeling. The smell of smoke. A windscreen wiper. A mother's marble eyes. Quite sane in the way she left huge tracts of darkness veiled. Unremembered.”

WayLooksFeelingsEyeMotherLeftMemoriesDarkDarknessHugeTrainSmellInsaneSmokeSaneClosetsFleetingUnlikelyMarbleDark Things
Book:The God of Small Things
Create image

“They were not friends, Comdrade Pillai and Inspector Thomas Matthew, and they didn't trust each other. But they understood each other perfectly. They were both men whom childhood had abandoned without a trace. Men without curiosity. Without doubt. Both in their own way truly, terrifyingly, adult. They looked out into the world and never wondered how it worked, because they knew. They worked it. They were mechanics who serviced different parts of the same machine.”

MenWorldWayDifferentDoubtChildhoodUnderstoodAdultsMachinesCuriosityAbandonedMechanicMatthewInspectorsNot FriendsWithout A Trace
Author:Arundhati Roy
Create image