602 Quotes by Arundhati Roy

My mother is like a character who escaped from the set of a Fellini film. She's a whole performing universe of her own. Activists would run a mile from her because they could not deal with what she is.

Fascism itself can only be turned away if all those who are outraged by it show a commitment to social justice that equals the intensity of their indignation.

When I decided to write 'The God of Small Things', I had been working in cinema. It was almost a decision to downshift from there. I thought that 300 people would read it. But it created a platform of trust.

People say to me, Oh, it's so wonderful that you're writing about real things, and that it's a political thing to do, and I say, look-to be in my position and not say anything is a hell of a political thing. You need to think politically, otherwise you'll be one of these people who says, Oh, this person's saying this and that person's saying that, and I'm confused. And I say, yeah, because you want to be confused.

Do you think that the people of South Africa, or anywhere on the continent of Africa, or India, or Pakistan are longing to be kicked around all over again?

The genocide will not necessarily take the form of war, or death camps. Most likely it will take the form of ecocide, in which landscapes are devastated and the populations that live there slowly starve or turn upon each other savagely because there isn't enough food or water to go around.

I could have lived anywhere in the world now if I wanted to.

With the certitude of a true believer, Vellya Paapen had assured the twins that there was no such thing in the world as a black cat. He said that there were only black cat chaped holes in the universe.

Novels are such mysterious and amorphous and tender things.