104 Quotes by Katherine Boo

Much of her outrage derived from a belated recognition that she was as human as anyone else.

If the house is crooked and crumbling, and the land on which it sits uneven, is it possible to make anything lie straight?

While independent India had been founded by high-born, well-educated men, by the twenty-first century few such types stood for elections, or voted in them, since the wealthy had extra-democratic means of securing their social and economic interests. Across India, poor people were the ones who took the vote seriously. It was the only real power they had. Another.

An awkward, uneducated boy might still be capable of righteousness: He intended to remember this and every other truth The Master spoke.

Sunil and Abdul sat together more often than before, but when they spoke, it was with the curious formality of people who shared the understanding that much of what was said did not matter, and that much of what mattered could not be said.

One thing that was very clear to me is that the young people in a place like Annawadi aren’t tripping on caste the way their parents are. They know their parents have these old views.

One of his private vanities was that all the garbage sorting had endowed his hands with killing strength – that he could chop a brick in half like Bruce Lee.

The lyrics, in English, were meaningless to him, the bass line irresistible.

His general approach toward his neighbors was this: ‘The better I know you, the more I will dislike you, and the more you will dislike me. So let us keep to ourselves.