---
title: "1 Reader Reading Quotes By Pankaj Mishra"
description: "1 Reader Reading quotes by Pankaj Mishra. Plus more from Pankaj Mishra and more Reader Reading sayings from other authors."
image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/17e/pankaj-mishra-2875_books_most-of-what-i-read-is-for-reviewing-pur_2692702.jpg"
---

> [Most of what I read is for reviewing purposes or related to something I want to write about. It's slightly utilitarian. I definitely miss that sense of being a disinterested reader who's reading purely for the pleasure of imagining his…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/pankaj-mishra/most-of-what-i-read-is-for-reviewing-purposes-or-related-to-something/)

[Pankaj Mishra](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/pankaj-mishra/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/17e/pankaj-mishra-2875_books_most-of-what-i-read-is-for-reviewing-pur_2692702.jpg)

## More by Pankaj Mishra

> [“Nationalism has again become a seductive but treacherous antidote to an experience of disorder and meaninglessness: the unexpectedly rowdy anticlimax, in a densely populated…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/pankaj-mishra/nationalism-has-again-become-a-seductive-but-treacherous-antidote-to/)

[Pankaj Mishra](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/pankaj-mishra/)

> [I feel very privileged to get to read and write and not to have to do things that I don't like, and I don't…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/pankaj-mishra/i-feel-very-privileged-to-get-to-read-and-write-and-not-to-have-to-do/)

[Pankaj Mishra](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/pankaj-mishra/)

> [There was great political uncertainty in South Asia at the time of the Buddha. The older small tribal societies were cracking up and gave…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/pankaj-mishra/there-was-great-political-uncertainty-in-south-asia-at-the-time-of/)

[Pankaj Mishra](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/pankaj-mishra/)

> [Buddhism resonated very powerfully with a lot of my preoccupations.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/pankaj-mishra/buddhism-resonated-very-powerfully-with-a-lot-of-my-preoccupations/)

[Pankaj Mishra](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/pankaj-mishra/)

> [Our tolerance of the intolerable found a low threshold as early as the late 1950s with the grotesque excesses of McCarthyism, which destroyed so…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/pankaj-mishra/our-tolerance-of-the-intolerable-found-a-low-threshold-as-early-as/)

[Pankaj Mishra](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/pankaj-mishra/)

> [Freedom of speech doesn't guarantee great literature.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/pankaj-mishra/freedom-of-speech-doesn-t-guarantee-great-literature/)

[Pankaj Mishra](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/pankaj-mishra/)

> [“As Keynes wrote, with devastating understatement, ‘The age of economic internationalism was not particularly successful in avoiding war.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/pankaj-mishra/as-keynes-wrote-with-devastating-understatement-the-age-of-economic/)

[Pankaj Mishra](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/pankaj-mishra/)

> [“Voltaire was soon turned, with Catherine’s encouragement, into a patron saint for the secular Russian aristocracy. Voltairianism, vaguely signifying rationalism, scepticism and reformism, became…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/pankaj-mishra/voltaire-was-soon-turned-with-catherine-s-encouragement-into-a-patron/)

[Pankaj Mishra](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/pankaj-mishra/)

> [“Today, the belief in progress, necessary for life in a Godless universe, can no longer be sustained, except, perhaps, in the Silicon Valley mansions…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/pankaj-mishra/today-the-belief-in-progress-necessary-for-life-in-a-godless-universe/)

[Pankaj Mishra](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/pankaj-mishra/)

> [We are always boosting or trying to prop up the ego by fulfilling some desire or other, and always craving affirmation from the outside.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/pankaj-mishra/we-are-always-boosting-or-trying-to-prop-up-the-ego-by-fulfilling/)

[Pankaj Mishra](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/pankaj-mishra/)

> [I don't think of myself as particularly earnest. I have long bouts of cynicism and skepticism. So much of my early life was full…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/pankaj-mishra/i-don-t-think-of-myself-as-particularly-earnest-i-have-long-bouts-of/)

[Pankaj Mishra](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/pankaj-mishra/)

> [“Marx reproduced medieval and Reformation millenarian expectations in his utopia of a classless, stateless society.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/pankaj-mishra/marx-reproduced-medieval-and-reformation-millenarian-expectations-in/)

[Pankaj Mishra](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/pankaj-mishra/)

> [“History, largely experienced previously as a series of natural disasters, could now be seen as a movement in which everyone could potentially enlist.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/pankaj-mishra/history-largely-experienced-previously-as-a-series-of-natural/)

[Pankaj Mishra](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/pankaj-mishra/)

> [Writers in the nineteenth century - people like George Eliot and Flaubert - were accustomed to addressing particular communities with which they shared not…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/pankaj-mishra/writers-in-the-nineteenth-century-people-like-george-eliot-and/)

[Pankaj Mishra](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/pankaj-mishra/)

> [Most suffering is human-made and avoidable. It's mostly in your head.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/pankaj-mishra/most-suffering-is-human-made-and-avoidable-it-s-mostly-in-your-head/)

[Pankaj Mishra](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/pankaj-mishra/)

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