Quotes from Kamala Markandaya

For where shall a man turn who has no money? Where can he go? Wide, wide world, but as narrow as the coins in your hand. Like a tethered goat, so far and no farther. Only money can make the rope stretch, only money.

Well, and what if we give in to our troubles at every step! We would be pitiable creatures indeed to be so weak, for is not a man's spirit given to him to rise above his misfortunes? As for our wants, they are many and unfilled, for who is so rich or compassionate as to supply them? Want is our companion from birth to death, familiar as the seasons or the earth, varying only in degree. What profit to bewail that which has always been and cannot change?

We live by our labors from one harvest to the next, there is no certain telling whether we shall be able to feed ourselves and our children, and if bad times are prolonged we know we must see the weak surrender their lives and this fact, too, is within our experience. In our lives there is no margin for misfortune.

Sometimes at night I think that my husband is with me again, coming gently through the mists, and we are tranquil together. Then the morning comes, the wavering grey turns to gold, there is stirring within me as the sleepers awake, and he softly departs.

Nature is like a wild animal that you have trained to work for you. So long as you are vigilant and walk warily with thought and care, so long will it give you its aid; but look away for an instant, be heedless or forgetful, and it has you by the throat.

The truth is unpalatable.

That is all you can think of: what people will say! One goes from one end of the world to the other to hear the same story. Does it matter what people say?

We had for so long accepted her obedience to our will that when it ceased to be given naturally, it came as a considerable chock; yet there was no option but to accept the change, strange and bewildering as it was, for obedience cannot be extorted.

How quickly children grow! They are infants -- you look away a minute and in that time they have left their babyhood behind.

You must cry out if you want help. It is no use whatsoever to suffer in silence. Who will succour the drowning man if he does not clamour for his life?

He sighed impatently. 'You simplify everything, being without understanding. Your views are so limited it is impossible to explain to you.' 'Limited, yes,' I agreed. Yet not wholly without understanding. Our ways are not your ways.

There is a rare gentleness in you, the sweeter for its brief appearances.

Troubles,' he said. 'We all have them.

She was no longer a child, to be cowed or forced into submission, but a grown woman with a definite purpose and an invincible determination.

you must cry out if you want help. It is no use whatsoever to suffer in silence. Who will succour the drowning man if he does not clamour for his life?