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People Quotes by Arundhati Roy

74 People quotes by Arundhati Roy

All People quotes Arundhati Roy’s page

Arundhati Roy warns that calling 'the people' the ultimate moral authority can feel unsettling. She describes how poverty in India is so vast that the state cannot control it, yet it still floods cities. She also stresses that destroying indigenous peoples, who practice sustainable living, ultimately harms us.

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The American people ought to know that it is not them, but their government's policies, that are so hated.

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the truth is that it's far easier to make a bomb than to educate four hundred million people.

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People always loved best what they identified most with.

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That's what careless words do. They make people love you a little less.

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The people who are getting rich can't imagine that the world is not a better place.

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The people who created the crisis will not be the ones that come up with a solution

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The people who created the crisis in the first place will not be the ones that come up with a solution.

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Do you think that the people of South Africa, or anywhere on the continent of Africa, or India, or Pakistan are longing…

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People who promote the free market and growth are far more romantic, and far more ideologically driven and blinded by their vision…

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Indian intellectuals today feel radical when they condemn fundamentalism, but not many people are talking about the links between privatization, globalization, and…

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I don't think the state will allow people to occupy a particular space unless it feels that allowing that will end up…

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Flags are bits of colored cloth used first to shrinkwrap people's brains and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead.

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In India, the poverty is so vast that the state cannot control it. It can beat people, but it can't prevent the…

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One of the reasons some people get so angry with me is because I have the space now that a lot of…

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In India, whichever language you write in, the possibility of people not understanding irony or not understanding [remains there]. This as a…

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At some stage, as the water tables are dropping and the minerals that remain in the mountains are being taken out, we…

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I really worry about these political people that have no personal life. If there's nothing that's lovely, and if there's nothing that's…

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Imagine what would happen if the government were to take the wealth of 200,000 of India's richest people and redistribute it amongst…

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Colorful demonstrations and weekend marches are vital but alone are not powerful enough to stop wars. Wars will be stopped only when…

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In Delhi the cars are getting bigger and sleeker, the hotels are getting posher, the gates are getting higher, and the guards…

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When people stop some film from being shot or burn a book, it's not just that they are saying, this is against…

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The Occupy movement found places where people who were feeling that anger could come and share it - and that is, as…

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Every people, every society, needs a culture of resistance, a culture of being difficult and disobedient, that is the only way they…

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Delhi is a very maligned city, and deservedly so. Yet there's something about it. It's a secret city, it doesn't hang out…

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After using the 'good offices' of UN diplomacy (economic sanctions and weapons inspections) to ensure that Iraq was brought to its knees,…

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I firstly don't think of myself as an activist, I never have. I always say that, I think this word "activist" is…

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We're supposed to forget whatever happened in the past because 9/11 is where history begins. Okay, since 2001, how many wars have…

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In the forests of central India and in many, many rural areas, a huge battle is being waged. Millions of people are…

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We often confuse or loosely use the ideas of crony capitalism or neoliberalism to actually avoid using the word "capitalism", but once…

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Our tragedy today is not just that millions of people who called themselves communist or socialist were physically liquidated in Vietnam, Indonesia,…

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This is a diseased century. We diagnosed the disease and its causes with microscopic exactness, but whenever we applied the healing knife…

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When I decided to write 'The God of Small Things', I had been working in cinema. It was almost a decision to…

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When people say "the people" or "the public" as though it's the final repository of all morality, I sometimes flinch.

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We ought to say, "Occupy Wall Street, not Iraq," "Occupy Wall Street, not Afghanistan," "Occupy Wall Street, not Palestine." The two need…

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I'm a social cripple in a cocktail party. My idea of a nightmare is people standing very elegantly dressed in a room…

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I know that a world in which countries are stockpiling nuclear weapons and using them in the ways that India and Pakistan…

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I think many people were surprised by the victory of the Congress, because it was really hard to see beyond the sort…

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The great irony is that people who live in remote areas, who are illiterate and don't own TVs, are in some ways…

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Many people have accused me of having a romantic view, whereas I personally I feel sorry for those who have lost romance…

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There are people who have comfortable relationships with power and people with natural antagonism to power. I think it's easy to guess…

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More by Arundhati Roy

...As the disparity between the rich and the poor grows, the fight to corner resources is intensifying. To push through their "sweetheart deals," to…

In 2001, we were told that the war in Afghanistan was a feminist mission. The marines were liberating Afghan women from the Taliban. Can…

Poverty is a crime and the poor are terrorists

Flat muscled and honey coloured. Sea secrets in his eyes. A silver raindrop in his ear.

Fiction and non-fiction are only different techniques of story telling. For reasons I do not fully understand, fiction dances out of me. Non-fiction is…

NGOs have a complicated space in neoliberal politics. They are supposed to mop up the anger. Even when they are doing good work, they…

I've never been that person who thought that because I've written one novel, I should write another and another. It's only when there was…

It is such a supreme folly to believe that nuclear weapons are deadly only if they're used.

I think one of the saddest things that's happening to literature is that it's getting over-simplified by this diet of simple political ideas.

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.

But what was there to say? Only that there were tears. Only that Quietness and Emptiness fitted together like stacked spoons. Only that there…

Truly, there's no alternative to stupidity. Cretinism is the mother of fascism. I have no defence against it, really…

“...the secret of the Great Stories is that they have no secrets. The Great Stories are the ones you have heard and want to…

“stilts, the ground floors given over to parking. It’s a good idea in this car-maddened city,”

“Perhaps it’s true that things can change in a day. That a few dozen hours can affect the outcome of whole lifetimes. And that…