103 Quotes by Amitav Ghosh

I know nothing of this silence except that it lies outside the reach of my intelligence, beyond words – that is why this silence must win, must inevitably defeat me, because it is not a presence at all.

How do you fight an enemy who fights from neither enmity nor anger but in submission to orders from superiors, without protest and without conscience?

Hold a bottle by the neck and a woman by the waist. Never the other way around”.

Democracy is a wonderful thing, Mr Burnham,’ he said wistfully. ‘It is a marvellous tamasha that keeps the common people busy so that men like ourselves can take care of all matters of importance. I hope one day India will also be able to enjoy these advantages – and China too, of course.

I could not persuade her that a place does not merely exist, that it has to be invented in one’s imagination.

There are few expressions in the English language that are less attractive to women than ‘Rare Book Dealer.

How do you lose a word? Does it vanish into your memory, like an old toy in a cupboard, and lie hidden in the cobwebs and dust, waiting to be cleaned out or rediscovered?

To want to be ahead, and to celebrate and mythify this endeavor, is indeed one of the most powerful impulses of modernity itself.

Recognition is famously a passage from ignorance to knowledge.