602 Quotes by Arundhati Roy

D’you know what happens when you hurt people?” Ammu said. “When you hurt people, they begin to love you less. That’s what careless words do. They make people love you a little less.

Et tu, Caesar? Then fall, Caesar.Et tu, Estha? Then fall, Estha.

By the time they got back, the lights were all out and everybody was asleep. Everybody, that is, except for Guih Kyom the dung beetle. He was wide awake and on duty, lying on his back with his legs in the air to save the world in case the heavens fell.

There were rumours and counter­rumours. There were rumours that might have been true, and truths that ought to have been just rumours.

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

Some days he walked along the banks of the river that smelled of shit and pesticides bought with World Bank loans.

To be present in history, even as nothing more than a chuckle, was a universe away from being absent from it, from being written out of it altogether. A chuckle, after all, could become a foothold in the sheer wall of the future.

The gist of it was the caste (privileged) hindus wanted the power to close the door on untouchables, but on no account could untouchables be given the power to close the door on themselves. The Masters knew that Choice was Power.

She was buried right next to her mother, Begum Arifa Yeswi. Mother and daughter died by the same bullet. It entered Miss Jebeen’s head through her left temple and came to rest in her mother’s heart. In the last photograph of her, the bullet wound looked like a cheerful summer rose arranged just above her left ear. A few petals had fallen on her kaffan, the white shroud she was wrapped in before she was laid to rest.