Quotes from Arundhati Roy

Our freedoms were not granted to us by any governments. They were wrested from them by us. And once we surrender them, the battle to retrieve them is called a revolution.

The Maoists are not the only ones who seek to depose the Indian State. It's already been deposed, several times, by Hindu fundamentalism and economic totalitarianism.

The God of Goosebumps and Sudden Smiles. He could do only one thing at a time. If he touched her, he couldn't talk to her, if he loved her he couldn't leave, if he spoke he couldn't listen, if he fought he couldn't win. Ammu longed for him. Ached for him with the whole of her biology. She returned to the dinner table.

Do we need weapons to fight wars? Or do we need wars to create a market for weapons? After all, the economies of Europe, the United States, and Israel depend hugely on their weapons industry. It's the one thing they haven't outsourced to China.

Rahel grew up without a brief. Without anybody to arrange a marriage for her. Without anybody who would pay her a dowry and therefore without an obligatory husband looming on her horizon.

the end of the day we're all animals. We need to be shown our pee ell a see ee. A little clarity will go a long way towards helping all the concerned parties. You will be doing her a favour for which she will, one day, be grateful. Believe me, I speak from experience.' R.C. often dropped his voice mid-sentence and spelled out random words, as though he was hoodwinking an imaginary eavesdropper who didn't know how to spell.

They looked out at the world and never wondered how it worked, because they knew They worked it.

She could feel how soft she felt to him. She could feel herself through him. Her skin. The way her body existed only where he touched her. The rest of her was smoke.

A few audacious scholars had begun to suggest that the Ramlila was really history turned into mythology, and that the evil demons were really dark-skinned Dravidians—indigenous rulers—and the Hindu gods who vanquished them (and turned them into Untouchables and other oppressed castes who would spend their lives in service of the new rulers) were the Aryan invaders.

Constitutional morality is not a natural sentiment. It has to be cultivated. We must realise that our people have yet to learn it. Democracy in India is only a top-dressing on an Indian soil which is essentially undemocratic".65

Rahel drifted into marriage like a passenger drifts in an airport lounge. With a Sitting Down sense.

There was no trace of the slim, attractive girl that she had been.

She wondered how to un-know certain things, certain specific things that she knew but did not wish to know.

Biology designed the dance. Terror timed it.

I promise you this, Kama said to Kunti. You will always have five sons. Yudhishtra I will not harm. Bhima will not die by my hand. The twins— Nakula and Sahadeva—will go untouched by me. But Arjuna—him I will make no promises about. I will kill him, or he will kill me. One of us will die.

It was raining when Rahel came back to Ayemenem. Slanting silver ropes slammed into loose earth, ploughing it up like gun-fire.

The twins climbed into the vallom and rowed across vast, choppy waters. With a Thaiy thaiy thaka thaiy thaiy thome. And a jeweled Jesus watching. He walked on water. Perhaps. But could He have swum on land? (201)

God's carotid burst open on the new border between India and Pakistan and a million people died of hatred.

Rahel drogs in i äktenskapet som en resenär dras till en ledig stol i vänthallen på en flygplats. Med en Slå sig ner-känsla.

you cannot stage their revolution for them. You can only create awareness. Educate them. They must launch their own struggle. They must overcome their fears.

What is the acceptable amount of blood for good literature?

It was the kind of time in the life of a family when something happens to nudge its hidden morality from its resting place and make it bubble to the surface and float for a while. In clear view.

In her growing years, Ammu had watched her father weave his hideous web. He was charming and urbane with visitors...He donated money to orphanages and leprosy clinics. He worked hard on his public profile as a sophisticated, generous, moral man. But alone with his wife and children he turned into a monstrous, suspicious bully, with a steak of vicious cunning. They were beaten, humiliated, and then made to suffer the envy of friends and relations for having such a wonderful husband and father.

Can starving people go on a hunger strike? And do hunger strikes work when they're not on TV?