Bad writing as a conscious goal is liberating for students: They are freed to be creative in a new and different way. — Amitava Kumar Copy Share Image
Much of what we regard as truth in the war on terror is actually rather suspect. — Amitava Kumar Copy Share Image
Our public culture is one in which only the young and the beautiful will succeed. If you're forty, you're finished. — Amitava Kumar Beautiful Copy Share Image
I'm generalizing wildly, but academic books find safety in explanations that reduce the chaos of social life. — Amitava Kumar Books Copy Share Image
To write what is not dead on the page, one has to be open to all kinds of disturbances and challenges and… — Amitava Kumar Challenges Copy Share Image
I was seen as a traitor for marrying a Muslim - a Pakistani at that. — Amitava Kumar Islam Copy Share Image
No civilization has a monopoly on tolerance; each is capable of bigotry. — Amitava Kumar Bigotry Copy Share Image
A writer can be subjective, even digressive, or introspective and certainly judgmental. This is a simplification, of course, but as a general… — Amitava Kumar Copy Share Image
There is a great deal of freshness and charm in '400 Blows.' There is also a great deal of visual poetry in… — Amitava Kumar Artist Copy Share Image
A wonderful innovation of the Occupy Wall Street movement was the use of the human microphone - the name given to the… — Amitava Kumar Body Copy Share Image
If India breaks your heart with untold inequalities, it also surprises you with the unheralded achievements of its most humble citizens. — Amitava Kumar Heart Copy Share Image
An essay is not an op-ed that tells its reader what to think. An essay is a complicated working-out of one's own… — Amitava Kumar Books Copy Share Image
I have long held that many of the writers and artists working in the aftermath of 9/11 have presented a faux familiarity… — Amitava Kumar Art Copy Share Image
I arrived in the U.S. for graduate study in literature in the fall of 1986. I was twenty-three. After a year, I… — Amitava Kumar Copy Share Image
I should not romanticize the simplicity of a village. For instance, the place from where I used to buy a packet of… — Amitava Kumar Copy Share Image
Does the entry of Indian H-1B worker augur a change in the relations of production in the world of cybertechnology? No, but… — Amitava Kumar Change Copy Share Image
In the U.S., the FBI or the people I met from the Department of Justice might be ignorant about Islam or about… — Amitava Kumar Copy Share Image
Long ago, when I was in higher secondary school in Delhi, I read an essay by George Orwell in which he said… — Amitava Kumar Copy Share Image
Michael Ondaatje’s work taught me how to be at home in fragments, and how to think about a big story in carefully… — Amitava Kumar Copy Share Image
When we were getting married the Hindu way in Arrah, we had an old guest who asked my wife what her 'good… — Amitava Kumar Getting married Copy Share Image
In the way in which we are living in a much more explosive and more tension-filled society, a society that is driven… — Amitava Kumar Cinema Copy Share Image
India allows you the luxury of a million inequalities. You can be a schoolboy selling tea to passengers sitting in a state… — Amitava Kumar Fish Copy Share Image
Even fake news tries to convince us of its reality, but it does so mostly by appealing to your preconceived notions, your… — Amitava Kumar Fake news Copy Share Image
I think criticism is often so pallid, so tame. I wish it were more performative. — Amitava Kumar Criticism Copy Share Image
To my mind, a journalist needs to espouse objectivity and distance, while a writer practises an art that is more free. — Amitava Kumar Art Copy Share Image
For years, in the wake of Rushdie, I had imagined magical realism to be the last refuge of the non-resident Indian. — Amitava Kumar Indian Copy Share Image
A character takes shape in the act of writing. You start with something, and you add or subtract. — Amitava Kumar Character Copy Share Image
What is the difference between the novelist and the liar? At some moments, I have often wondered. — Amitava Kumar Copy Share Image
The border is a marketplace. The invisible hand of the powerful governs the crossings. — Amitava Kumar Border Copy Share Image
