Quotes from Kiran Desai

But so fluid a thing was love.It wasn't firm,he was learning, it wasn't a scripture;it was a wobbliness that lent itself to betrayal,taking the mold of whatever he poured he poured it into.And in fact,it was difficult to keep from pouring it into numerous vessels.It could be used for all kinds of purposes....He wished it were a constraint.It was truly beginning to frighten him.

Saeed quickly found employment at a Banana Republic, where he would sell to urban sophisticates the black turtleneck of the season, in a shop whose name was synonymous with colonial exploitation and the rapacious ruin of the third world.

I feel as comfortable anywhere as I feel uncomfortable anywhere.

Slowly, painstakingly, like ants, men would make their paths and civilization and their wars once again, only to have it wash away again.

I'm always in the kitchen, cooking and experimenting - I love it. And every now and then I think, 'I should write a cookbook' or, 'I should write for food magazines.' And then I get drawn back to writing fiction again.

If you write a lovely story about India, you're criticized for selling an exotic version of India. And if you write critically about India, you're seen as portraying it in a negative light - it also seems to be a popular way to present India, sort of mangoes and beggars.

No fruit dies so vile and offensive a death as the banana.

I don't think you can write according to a set of rules and laws; every writer is so different.