Arundhati Roy quotes: top famous quotes and sayings by Arundhati Roy

Top Arundhati Roy Quotes

Browse top 171 most favorite famous quotes and sayings by Arundhati Roy.

Favorite Arundhati Roy Quotes

1. "Either way, change will come. It could be bloody, or it could be beautiful. It depends on us." ~ Arundhati Roy

2. "Smells, like music, hold memories. She breathed deep, and bottled it up for posterity." ~ Arundhati Roy

3. "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." ~ Arundhati Roy

4. "It was a grand old house, the Ayemenem House, but aloof-looking. As though it had little to do with the people who lived in it. Like an old man with rheumy eyes watching children play, seeing only transience in their shrill elation and their whole-hearted commitment to life." ~ Arundhati Roy

5. "[Internationa] Aid is just another praetorian business enterprise." ~ Arundhati Roy

6. "Outside, the Air was Alert and Bright and Hot... She could see the pattern of the cross-stitch flowers from the blue cross-stitch counterpane on Ammu's cheek. She could hear the blue cross-stitch afternoon.The slow ceiling fan. The sun behind the curtains. The yellow wasp wasping against the windowpane in a dangerous dzzzzzzzzzzzz. A disbelieving lizard's blink.High-stepping chickens in the yard.The sound of the sun crinkling the washing.Crisping white bed-sheets. Stiffened starched saris. Off white and gold.Red ants on yellow stones.A hot cow feeling hot. Ahmoo in the distance." ~ Arundhati Roy

7. "...although you know that one day you will die, you live as if you won't." ~ Arundhati Roy

8. "He couldn't see her, sitting outside in the darkness, looking in at the light. A pair of actors trapped in a recondite play with no hint of plot or narrative. Stumbiling through their parts nursing someone else's sorrow. Grieving someone else's grief. Unable somehow to change plays. Or purchase, for a fee some cheap brand of exorcism from a conveyor with a fancy degree, who would sit them down and say in one of many ways: " Your not the sinners. You're the sinned against. You were only children.You had no control. You are the victims, not the perpetrators." It would of helped if they could of made that crossing. If only they could have worn, even temporarily, the tragic hood of victim hood" ~ Arundhati Roy

9. "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." ~ Arundhati Roy

10. "…imagine that the earth—four thousand six hundred million years old—[were] a forty-six-year-old woman…. It had taken the whole of the Earth Woman's life for the earth to become what it was. For the oceans to part. For the mountains to rise. The Earth Woman was eleven years old…when the first single-celled organisms appeared. The first animals, creatures like worms and jellyfish, appeared only when she was forty. She was over forty-five—just eight months ago—when dinosaurs roamed the earth. The whole of human civilization as we know it began only two hours ago in the Earth Woman's life…. It was an awe-inspiring and humbling thought…that the whole of contemporary history, the World Wars, the War of Dreams, the Man on the Moon, science, literature, philosophy, the pursuit of knowledge—was no more than a blink of the Earth Woman's eye." ~ Arundhati Roy

11. "Un, kad mes skatamies pa logu, tad redzam tikai enas. Ka meginam ieklausities, mes dzirdam tikai cukstus. Mes nevaram saprast cukstus, jo musu pratos ir iebrucis karš. Karš, kura mes esam uzvarejuši un zaudejuši Pats sliktakais karš. Karš, kas sagusta sapnus un tos parsapno par jaunu. Karš, kas licis mums pielugt musu iekarotajus un nicinat pašiem sevi." ~ Arundhati Roy

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

13. "Vinai izveidojas speciga netaisnibas izjuta un ietiepigs, bezrupigs raksturs, kads rodas, tad, kad Kadu Mazu visu mužu spidzina Kads Lielais. Vina neko nedarija, lai izvairitos no stridiem un konfliktiem. Patiesibu sakot, vina tos pat mekleja, varbut vinai tie pat patika." ~ Arundhati Roy

14. "Divi aktieri, ieslodziti divaina izrade, kura nav ne minas no darbibas vai sižeta. Mokas ar savam lomam, bedadami, kada cita bedas. Serodami kada cita seras. Nespedami, nekadi nespedami izklut no izrades. Vai par naudu tikt pie vardotaja ar ipašu gradu, lai tas vinus apsedinatu un pateiktu: "Jus neesat Grecinieki, jus esat Tie, pret kuriem Grekots. Jus bijat tikai berni. Jums nebija varas. Jus esat upuri, nevis paridaritaji." Tagad butu labak, ja vini tam butu tikuši pari. Ja viniem butu lauts kaut uz bridi nesat upura tragisko masku. Tad vini varetu visu ieraudzit cita gaisma, ienist visu notikušo. Vai tiekties pec atriebibas. Un galu gala varbut atbrivoties no atminam, kas vinus vajaja." ~ Arundhati Roy

15. "Flat muscled and honey coloured. Sea secrets in his eyes. A silver raindrop in his ear." ~ Arundhati Roy

16. "The twins were too young to know that these were only history's henchmen. Sent to square the books and collect the dues from those who broke its laws. Impelled by feelings that were primal yet paradoxically wholly impersonal. Feelings of contempt born of inchoate, unacknowledged fear—civilization's fear of nature, men's fear of women, power's fear of powerlessness. Man's subliminal urge to destroy what he could neither subdue nor deify." ~ Arundhati Roy

17. "They looked cheerful in the photograph, Lenin and his wife. As though they had a new refrigerator in their drawing room, and a down payment on a DDA flat." ~ Arundhati Roy

18. "...el secreto de las Grandes Historias es que no tienen secretos. Las Grandes Historias son aquellas que ya se han oído y que se quiere oír otra vez. Aquellas a las que se puede entrar por cualquier puerta, y habitar en ellas cómodamente. No engañan con emociones o finales falsos. No sorprenden con imprevistos. Son tan conocidas como la casa en la que se vive. O el olor de la piel del ser amado. Sabemos cómo acaban y, sin embargo, las escuchamos como si no lo supiéramos. Del mismo modo que, aun sabiendo que algún día moriremos, vivimos como si fuésemos inmortales. En las Grandes Historias sabemos quién vive, quién muere, quién encuentra el amor y quién no. Y, aún así, queremos volver a saberlo.Ahí radica su misterio y su magia." ~ Arundhati Roy

19. "Rahel thought of the someone who had taken the trouble to go up there with cans of paint, white for the clouds, blue for the sky, silver for the jets, and brushes, and thinner." ~ Arundhati Roy

20. "She was perhaps too young to realize that what she assumed was her love for [him] was actually a tentative, timorous, acceptance of herself." ~ Arundhati Roy

21. "If you're happy in a dream, does that count?" ~ Arundhati Roy

22. "Then to give the kids a historical perspective, Chacko told them about the earth woman. He made them imagine that the earth - 4600 million years old - was a 46 year old woman- as old as Aleyamma teaacher, who gave them Malayalam lessons. It had taken the whole of earth woman's life for the earth to become what it was. For the oceans to part. For the mountains to rise. The earth woman was 11 yrs old when the first single celled organisms appeared. The first animals, creatures like worms and jellyfish, appeared only when she was forty. She was over forty five - just 8 months ago - when dinosaurs roamed the earth. The whole of human civilization as we know it, began only 2 hrs ago in the earth woman's life…" ~ Arundhati Roy

23. "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." ~ Arundhati Roy

24. "It wasn't what lay at the end of her road that frightened Ammu as much as the nature of the road itself. No milestones marked its progress. No trees grew along it. No dappled shadows shaded it. No mists rolled over it. No birds circled it. No twists, no turns or hairpin bends obscured even momentarily, her clear view of the end. This filled Ammu with an awful dread, because she was not the kind of woman who wanted her future told. She dreaded it too much. So if she were granted one small wish perhaps it would have been Not to Know, Not to know what each day hed in store for her. Not to know where she might be, next month, next year. Ten years on. Not to know which way her road might turn and what lay beyond the bend." ~ Arundhati Roy

25. "I kind of resent the idea that the whole world has to be interested in the American elections." ~ Arundhati Roy

26. "Once the quietness arrived, it stayed and spread in Estha. It reached out of his head and enfolded him in its swampy arms. It rocked him to the rhythm of an ancient, fetal heartbeat. It sent its stealthy, suckered tentacles inching along the insides of his skull, hoovering the knolls and dells of his memory; dislodging old sentences, whisking them off the tip of his tongue. It stripped his thoughts of the words that described them and left them pared and naked. Unspeakable. Numb. And to an observer therefore, perhaps barely there. Slowly, over the years, Estha withdrew from the world. He grew accustomed to the uneasy octopus that lived inside him and squirted its inky tranquilizer on his past. Gradually the reason for his silence was hidden away, entombed somewhere deep in the soothing folds of the fact of it." ~ Arundhati Roy

27. "Biology designed the dance. Terror timed it. Dictated the rhythm with which their bodies answered each other. As though they already knew that for each tremor of pleasure they would pay with an equal measure of pain. As though they knew that how far they went would be measured against how far they would be taken." ~ Arundhati Roy

28. "It's being made out that the whole point of the war was to topple the Taliban regime and liberate Afghan women from their burqas, we are being asked to believe that the U.S. marines are actually on a feminist mission." ~ Arundhati Roy

29. "If you are happy in a dream, Ammu, does that count? Estha asked. "Does what count?" "The happiness does it count?". She knew exactly what he meant, her son with his spoiled puff. Because the truth is, that only what counts, counts....."If you eat fish in a dream, does it count?" Does it mean you've eaten fish?" ~ Arundhati Roy

30. "He held her as though she was a gift. Given to him in love. Something still and small. Unbearably precious." ~ Arundhati Roy

31. "I'm trained as an architect; writing is like architecture. In buildings, there are design motifs that occur again and again, that repeat -- patterns, curves. These motifs help us feel comfortable in a physical space. And the same works in writing, I've found. For me, the way words, punctuation and paragraphs fall on the page is important as well -- the graphic design of the language. That was why the words and thoughts of Estha and Rahel, the twins, were so playful on the page ... I was being creative with their design. Words were broken apart, and then sometimes fused together. "Later" became "Lay. Ter." "An owl" became "A Nowl." "Sour metal smell" became "sourmetal smell."Repetition I love, and used because it made me feel safe. Repeated words and phrases have a rocking feeling, like a lullaby. They help take away the shock of the plot -- death, lives destroyed or the horror of the settings -- a crazy, chaotic, emotional house, the sinister movie theater." ~ Arundhati Roy

32. "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." ~ Arundhati Roy

33. "… he remained restrained and strangely composed. It was a composure born of extreme provocation. It stemmed from a lucidity that lies beyond rage." ~ Arundhati Roy

34. "There is a war that makes us adore our conquerors and despise ourselves." ~ Arundhati Roy

35. "As Estha stirred the thick jam he thought Two Thoughts and the Two Thoughts he thought were these:a) Anything can happen to anyone.andb) It is best to be prepared." ~ Arundhati Roy

36. "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." ~ Arundhati Roy

37. "Nationalism of one kind or another was the cause of most of the genocide of the twentieth century. Flags are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people's minds and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead." ~ Arundhati Roy

38. "Have we raised the threshold of horror so high that nothing short of a nuclear strike qualifies as a 'real' war? Are we to spend the rest of our lives in this state of high alert with guns pointed at each other's heads and fingers trembling on the trigger?" ~ Arundhati Roy

39. "From now on it is not dying we must fear, but living." ~ Arundhati Roy

40. "Quand elles en eurent assez d'avoir attendu, les odeurs du dîner descendirent des rideaux et s'échappèrent par les fenêtres de l'hôtel pour aller danser sur la mer jusqu'au petit matin." ~ Arundhati Roy

41. "Besoin inconscient chez l'homme de détruire ce qu'il ne peut ni soumettre ni adorer. (p.401)" ~ Arundhati Roy

42. "Et tu, Caesar? Then fall, Caesar.Et tu, Estha? Then fall, Estha." ~ Arundhati Roy

43. "Chacko marvelled at how someone so small and undefined, so vague in her resemblances,could so completely command the attention, the love, the sanity, of a grown man." ~ Arundhati Roy

44. "I love the unanswered question, the unresolved story, the unclimbed mountain, the tender shard of an incomplete dream. Most of the time. But is it mandatory for a writer to be ambiguous about everything? Isn't it true that there have been fearful episodes in human history when prudence and discretion would have just been euphemisms for pusillanimity? When caution was actually cowardice? When sophistication was disguised decadence? When circumspection was really a kind of espousal? Isn't it true, or at least theoretically possible, that there are times in the life of a people or a nation when the political climate demands that we—even the most sophisticated of us—overtly take sides? I think such times are upon us." ~ Arundhati Roy

45. "His gratitude widened his smile and bent his back." ~ Arundhati Roy

46. "At times there's something so precise and mathematically chilling about nationalism.Build a dam to take away water AWAY from 40 million people. Build a dam to pretend to BRING water to 40 million people. Who are these gods that govern us? Is there no limit to their powers?" ~ Arundhati Roy

47. "Ammu's tears made everything that had so far seemed unreal, real." ~ Arundhati Roy

48. "I do what I do, and write what I write, without calculating what is worth what and so on. Fortunately, I am not a banker or an accountant. I feel that there is a time when a political statement needs to be made and I make it." ~ Arundhati Roy

49. "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." ~ Arundhati Roy

50. "I'm not ambitious. I don't want to get anywhere, I don't want anything more. I sometimes think that for me that is the real freedom, that I don't want anything. I don't want money or prizes. I want people to know that a war is going to be fought." ~ Arundhati Roy

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Es gibt Momente, die sind so unwirklich, dass man sie einfach nicht begreifen kann, nicht mit dem Verstand, sehr wohl aber mit dem Herzen. Man befindet sich plötzlich mittendrin in diesen Momenten. Sie umgeben einen wie alte Zuckerwatte, klebrig und fies. Und obwohl man diese Augenblicke schon erlebt hat, fühlt man sich wie ein Fremder, aus der Bahn des eigenen Lebens geworfen."
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