Quotes from Upamanyu Chatterjee

For me, comedy is richer and larger than anything else.

I feel completely at home in the absurdities of India.

People should have literary and cultural taste and should not bomb hotels.

Advances don't fundamentally interest me. It sounds terribly naive, but money doesn't really mean anything to me. If a lot of money came my way, I'm certainly not going to say no. But it hasn't come my way as yet, and I'm not heartbroken.

The more languages you know, the less likely you are to become a terrorist.

I don't think I would do better books if I wrote full time. I write for amateurish reasons.

Amidst one's daily clutter, one doesn't usually reflect on the splendour of being free because - naturally - one has to get on with the business of living.

Anyone who has grown up in Delhi knows it's horrible.

Governance is complex, difficult, and on the whole, thankless - why ever should the Bright Young Things leave the management of their hotels, newspapers, banks, TV channels and corporations to join, like fleas on a behemoth, the government? Wherein lies the difference between the two worlds?

So much better to write pen on paper; you can do it anywhere, say, while stuck at the airport.

We are men without ambition, and all we want is to be left alone, in peace so that we can try and be happy. So few people will understand this simplicity.

It's a huge headache - the more money you have, the more hassles. I find money very uncomfortable.

We are men without ambition, and all we want is to be left alone, in peace so that we can try and be happy. So few people will understand this simplicity.

No one reveals himself more completely to others than to himself - that is, if he reveals himself at all.

He absent-mindedly fondled his crotch and then whipped his hand away.No masturbation,he suddenly decided.He tried to think about this but sustained logical thought on one topic was difficult and unnecessary.No,i am not wasting any semen on Madna.It was an impulse,but he felt that he should record it.In the diary under that date,he wrote,'From today no masturbation.Test your will,you bastard'. Then he wondered at his bravado.No masturbation at all?That was impossible.

You feel even more naked and alone, he said silently, when you reveal yourself, a gratuitous act, for the strength and comfort you look for, any of those last illusions of consolations, can finally be only within you.

Land is important everywhere, all kinds of land. But you have lived in cities. There you cannot sense the importance of agricultural land, its the real wealth. Each of these squares and hexagrams could be worth lakhs.

Only when you die will you cease to feel ridiculous.

He didn't want the friends of the different stages of his life to meet. Their encounter would almost be between different facets of himself, face to face.

God is a first-rate bureaucrat, one of the best. In all matters, He sees the truth, but is yet to take a decision.

Indecision will be your epitaph.

It was soporific to be mindlessly shunted about in a vehicle, to succumb to marijuana, the heat, the rhythm and roar of the jeep

You should marry early. As one grows older, one becomes increasingly reluctant to share one's toilet with someone else. What's

The Gita reminded him of the joker of Madna. "If thou wilt not fight thy battle battle of life because in selfishness thou art afraid of the battle, thy resolution is in vain: nature will compel thee. Because thou art in the bondage of Karma, of the forces of thine own past life.