Quotes from Saadat Hasan Manto

If you cannot bear these stories then the society is unbearable. Who am I to remove the clothes of this society, which itself is naked. I don't even try to cover it, because it is not my job, that's the job of dressmakers.

Here in Manto's own words that he wanted to mark his grave with: "In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful Here lies Saadat Hasan Manto and with him lie buried all the secrets and mysteries of the art of short-story writing.... Under tons of earth he lies, still wondering who among the two is greater short-story writer: God or He.

Hindustan had become free. Pakistan had become independent soon after its inception but man was still slave in both these countries -- slave of prejudice … slave of religious fanaticism … slave of barbarity and inhumanity.

If a man has to make a woman the center of his love, why should he integrate animality into this sacred human emotion?...Is love incompelete without it?...Is love the name of physical excersize ?

I feel like I am always the one tearing everything up and forever sewing it back together.

and it is also possible, that Saadat Hasan dies, but Manto remains alive.

To tell you the truth, the world seemed full of sad people – those who slept on the uncovered stoops of shops as well as those who lived in high-rise mansions. The man who walks about on foot worries that he doesn't have decent shoes to wear. The man who rides the automobile frets that he doesn't have the latest model car. Every man's complaint is valid in its own way. Every man's wish is legitimate in its own right.

You would have realized that it wasn't Mumtaz, a muslim, a friend of yours, but a human being you had killed. I mean, if he was a bastard, by killing him you wouldn't have killed the bastard in him; similarly, assuming that he was a Muslim, you wouldn't have killed his Muslimness, but him.

He catches the thieves that lie in the hearts of their pure and respectable wives. And he compares them to the purity in the heart of a whore in a brothel.

We've been hearing this for some time now — Save India from this, save it from that. The fact is that India needs to be saved from the people who say it should be saved.

A man remains a man no matter how poor his conduct. A woman, even if she were to deviate for one instance, from the role given to her by men, is branded a whore. She is viewed with lust and contempt. Society closes on her doors it leaves ajar for a man stained by the same ink. If both are equal, why are our barbs reserved for the woman?

Her pores were like those of an orange, its skin filled with juice, which, if you applied the slightest pressure, would squirt up into your eyes. She was that fresh.

I wondered why people consider escapism so bad, even the escapism on display right then. At first it might appear unseemly, but in the end its lack of pretension gives it its own sort of beauty.

For me, remembrance of things past has always been a waste of time, and what's the point of tears? I don't know. I've always been focussed on today. Yesterday and tomorrow hold no interest for me. What had to happen, did, and what will happen, will.

War has brought inflation even to the graveyard.

Manto had earlier been prosecuted in Lahore for obscenity, and one of the words alleged to have been obscene was, "breasts

To those men who say that women from "good families" must come into the world of cinema, I have this question: What is it that you mean by "good?" A woman, who honestly puts her wares on display, and sells them without an intention to cheat, is such a woman not virtuous?

Look this is hardly fair. You sold me impure petrol at black-market price and not even one shop could be put to the torch.

Literature and film in my opinion are like saloons where bottles have no labels. I want to taste each one myself and figure out which is what. If I'm denied this by labelling, then my entertainment is considerably lessened.

The field that cannot feed even its tiller Burn down every stalk that stands on it.

thought a glass of lassi would be refreshing. In the shop I noticed that the fan was on, but turned away from both customers and the owner. I was curious and asked why it was so. The owner glared at me and said: 'Can't you see?' I looked. The fan was pointed in the direction of a poster of our great leader, Muhammad Ali Jinnah. I shouted, 'Pakistan Zindabad!' and left without the lassi. In front of a shop, a man

Allah sends down natural disasters to control population explosion. He encourages us to go to war, He creates Pakistan and Akhand Bharat. In doing this, He teaches humans new and innovative methods of birth control.

Writers rarely set out to be national writers. They need small, intimate worlds, full of details; the macro scale of countries, especially those as wide and various as India, cannot be their direct material.

Engulfed by a sudden emptiness, she was reminded of a train which after discharging passengers at various stations, has finally come to rest, empty at a railway shed.