24 Quotes by Jeet Thayil

Isn't violence a failure of the imagination, after all? And that failure, isn't it stupidity?

He read because it gave him instant gratification in a way nothing else did,and as was the case with all addicts,gratification was the important thing.

Those who say time heals and death resolves are speaking falsely or thoughtlessly or without the experience of loss.

I've always liked the awkward young men and I'm no casteist, god no. I like boys, circumcised, uncircumcised, washed, unwashed, touchable, untouchable, straight, bent, curved, I mean, it's all love, isn't it, in the end?

My religion is no way of knowing me.

The world is on fire; time is a bomb.Ten thousand years are not enoughWhen so much remains to be done

I found Bombay and opium, the drug and the city, the city of opium and the drug Bombay

Isn't it incredible?, I said.There was nothing incredible about it, she said.I thought it was so because I spoke English, because I read books, and because my parents paid for my education and my upkeep. For me everything was surprising, the world was full of wonder, the most random idiotic occurrence was incredible because my luck made it so. For people like her, for the poor, the only incredible thing in the whole world was money and the mysterious ways in which it worked.

The more he drank the nicer he became; wine revealed his charity.