Quotes from Arundhati Roy

Addiction has its own mnemonics- skin, smell, the length of the loved one's fingers. In Tilo's case it was the slant of her eyes, the shape of her mouth, the almost invisible scar that slightly altered the symmetry of her lips and made her look defiant even when she did not mean to, the way her nostrils flared, announcing the displeasure even before hr eyes did.

How history negotiates its terms and collects its dues from those who break its laws.

They were strangers who had met in a chance encounter. They had known each other before Life began. (310)

The story flared, then faded.

In every part of the legendary Valley of Kashmir, whatever people might be doing—walking, praying, bathing, cracking jokes, shelling walnuts, making love or taking a bus-ride home—they were in the rifle-sights of a soldier. And because they were in the rifle-sights of a soldier, whatever they might be doing—walking, praying, bathing, cracking jokes, shelling walnuts, making love or taking a bus-ride home—they were a legitimate target.

She kept her doors and windows locked, unless she was using them.

She could hear her hair growing.

Democracy is the Free World's whore, willing to dress up, dress down, willing to satisfy a whole range of tastes.

If you're 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. The simple, unswerving truth of children. If you eat fish in a dream, does it count? Does it mean you've eaten fish?

The only thing worth globalizing is dissent.

Socrates asked the key question: why should we be moral?

Rahel's "list" was an attempt to order chaos. She revised it constantly, torn forever between love and duty. It was by no means a true gauge of her feelings.

In the country that she came from, poised forever between the terror of war and the horror of peace, Worse Things kept happening.

He tells stories of the gods, but his yarn is spun from the ungodly, human heart.

Diclofenac, cow aspirin, given to cattle as a muscle relaxant, to ease pain and increase the production of milk, works—worked—like nerve gas on white-backed vultures. Each chemically relaxed, milk-producing cow or buffalo that died became poisoned vulture bait.

no beast has essayed the boundless, infinitely inventive art of human hatred. No beast can match its range and power.

The first step towards reimagining a world gone terribly wrong would be to stop the annihilation of those a different imagination - an imagination that is outside of Capitalism as well as Communism. An imagination that has an altogether different understanding of what constitutes happiness and fulfillment.

If he held her, he couldn't kiss her. If he kissed her, he couldn't see her. If he saw her, he couldn't feel her. (205)

They're mostly rich folk who live in our poor country like captive animals, incarcerated by their own wealth, locked and barred in their gilded cages, protecting themselves from the threat of the vulgar and unruly multitudes whom they have systematically dispossessed over the centuries.

In Kashmir when we wake up and say "Good Morning" what we really mean is "Good Mourning.

Il est capable de mettre au jour la douleur qui est au coeur du bonheur. (p.305)

The time has come, the Walrus said. Perhaps things will become worse and then better. Perhaps there's a small god up in heaven readying herself for us. Another world is not only possible, she's on her way. Maybe many of us won't be here to greet her, but on a quiet day, if I listen very carefully, I can hear her breathing.

Are we] far more comfortable with the idea of poor people killing themselves in despair than with the idea of them fighting back?

It's a battle of those who know how to think against those who know how to hate. A battle of lovers against haters. It's an unequal battle, because the love is on the street and vulnerable. The hate is on the street, too, but it is armed to the teeth, and protected by all the machinery of the state.