602 Quotes by Arundhati Roy

What Larry McCaslin saw in Rahel’s eyes was not despair at all, but a sort of enforced optimism. And a hollow where Estha’s words’ had been. He couldn’t be expected to understand that. That the emptiness in one twin was only a version of the quietness in the other. That the two things fitted together. Like stacked spoons. Like familiar lovers’ bodies.

When she looked at him now, she couldn’t help thinking that the man he had become bore so little resemblance to the boy he had been. His smile was the only piece of baggage he had carried with him from boyhood into manhood.

The only dream worth having, I told her, is to dream that you will live while you’re alive and die only when you’re dead.

He had seen her through so much; he believed that if not he, then certainly music, would see her through this too.

In Kashmir when we wake up and say “Good Morning” what we really mean is “Good Mourning.

Is this Democracy or Demon Crazy?

Her collarbones like wings that spread from the base of her throat to the ends of her shoulders. A bird held down by skin.

Making bombs will only destroy us. It doesn’t matter whether we use them or not. They will destroy us either way.

Dams are the temples of secular India and almost worshipped. They are huge, wet cement flags that wave in our minds. They’re the symbol of nationalism to many.