Quote

In India, whichever language you write in, the possibility of people not understanding irony or not understanding [remains there]. This as a writer is most terrifying!

Arundhati Roy

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Arundhati Roy
Age: 63
Born: 1961
Born: September 24
Author
Essayist
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Suzanna Arundhati Roy
Writing
Irony
People
India
Remains
Possibility
Writer
Understanding
Language
Whichever
Write
Terrifying

More quotes by Arundhati Roy

Image
I am a woman who is a granddaughter of a lady who used to be beaten on the head by her husband, of a mother who went through hell because she was divorced and had to bring up these kids. And I can take 10 men out to lunch and pay the bill, and nobody even thinks twice about it. So don’t mess with me.
Arundhati Roy
Image
The fact is that America's weapons systems have made it impossible for anybody to confront it militarily. So, all you have is your wits and your cunning, and your ability to fight in the way the Iraqis are fighting.
Arundhati Roy
Image
Ammu loved her children (of course), but their wide-eyed vulnerability and their willingness to love people who didn't really love them exasperated her and sometimes made her want to hurt them-- just as an education, a precaution.
Arundhati Roy
Image
I think it was 50 million people across the world who marched against the war in Iraq. It was perhaps the biggest display of public morality in the world - you know, I mean, before the war happened. Before the war happened, everybody knew that they were being fed lies.
Arundhati Roy
Image
As a writer, I've often said that, among the other things that we need to reclaim, other than the obscene wealth of billionaires, is language. Language has been deployed to mean the exact opposite of what it really means when they talk about democracy or freedom.
Arundhati Roy
Image
Some things come with their own punishments.
Arundhati Roy
Image
May in Ayemenem is a hot, brooding month. The days are long and humid. The river shrinks and black crows gorge on bright mangoes in still, dustgreen trees. Red bananas ripen. Jackfruits burst. Dissolute bluebottles hum vacuously in the fruity air. Then they stun themselves against clear windowpanes and die, fatly baffled in the sun.
Arundhati Roy
Image
Mao said he was prepared to have millions of Chinese people perish in a nuclear war as long as China survived... I'm beginning to find it more and more sick that only humans make it into our calculations... Annihilate life on earth, but save the nation... what's the subject heading? Stupidity or Insanity?
Arundhati Roy
Image
Nationalism of one kind or another was the cause of most of the genocide of the twentieth century.
Arundhati Roy
Image
I'm not ambitious. I don't want to get anywhere, I don't want anything more. I sometimes think that for me that is the real freedom, that I don't want anything. I don't want money or prizes. I want people to know that a war is going to be fought.
Arundhati Roy
Image
… he remained restrained and strangely composed. It was a composure born of extreme provocation. It stemmed from a lucidity that lies beyond rage.
Arundhati Roy
Image
Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.
Arundhati Roy
Image
Ever since the Great Depression, we know that one of the key ways in which the US economy has stimulated growth is by manufacturing weapons and exporting war to other countries.
Arundhati Roy
Image
Rahel’s toy wristwatch had the time painted on it. Ten to two. One of her ambitions was to own a watch on which she could change the time whenever she wanted to (which according to her was what Time was meant for in the first place).
Arundhati Roy
Image
I can't be a part of the large convoy because it's not a choice that you can make. The fact that I'm an educated person means that I can't be on that convoy. I don't want to be on it. I don't want to be a victim. I don't want to disappear into the darkness.
Arundhati Roy
Image
I'm not somebody who plans my life. In fact, I don't know what's going to happen here in India, it's such a strange climate here at the moment. So very worrying.
Arundhati Roy
Image
She wore flowers in her hair and carried magic secrets in her eyes. She spoke to no one. She spent hours on the riverbank. She smoked cigarettes and had midnight swims.
Arundhati Roy
Image
I never do anything because I'm a celebrity, as a rule. I do what I do as a citizen.
Arundhati Roy
Image
To stay quiet is as political an act as speaking out.
Arundhati Roy
Image
Public support in the U.S. for the war against Iraq was founded on a multitiered edifice of falsehood and deceit, coordinated by the U.S. government and faithfully amplified by the corporate media.
Arundhati Roy