602 Quotes by Arundhati Roy

A bee died in a coffin flower.

Breathe gently here, for with fragility all is fraught, Here, in this workshop of the world, where wares of glass are wrought.

Ammu recognized vaguely that her thoughts were shot with a delicate, purple tinge of envy. She didn’t allow herself to consider who it was that she envied. The man or her own child. Or just their world of hooked fingers and sudden smiles.

The only dream worth having is to dream that you will live while you are alive, and die only when you are dead. To love, to be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and vulgar disparity of the life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.

In a while he reached across the table and took her hand in his. He could not have known that he was trying to comfort a building that had been struck by lightning.

Once you understand the process of corporate globalization, you have to see that what happened in Argentina, the devastation of Argentina by the IMF, is part of the same machine that is destroying Iraq. Both are efforts to break open and to control markets. And so Argentina is destroyed by the chequebook, and Iraq is destroyed by the cruise missile. If the chequebook won’t work, the cruise missile will. Hell hath no fury like a market scorned.

It was not entirely his fault that he lived in a society where a man’s death could be more profitable than his life had ever been.

To whom did it matter? Did those to whom it mattered matter?

She said, “I’m not marrying anybody.” When I asked her why she felt that way, she said she wanted to be free to die irresponsibly, without notice and for no reason.