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World Quotes by Arundhati Roy

49 World quotes by Arundhati Roy

All World quotes Arundhati Roy’s page

Arundhati Roy writes about how fiction and non‑fiction are just different ways to tell a story. She points out that NGOs sit in a tangled spot within neoliberal politics, trying to calm anger while being pulled in many directions. She also warns that imperial power can fracture cultures, turning places like Palestine and Kashmir into lingering wounds.

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I could have lived anywhere in the world now if I wanted to.

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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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Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.

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The American way of life is not sustainable. It doesn’t acknowledge that there is a world beyond America.

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“He made her feel as though the world belonged to them...”

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I kind of resent the idea that the whole world has to be interested in the American elections.

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Fiction is the most joyous, beautiful, sophisticated, wonderful thing in the world.

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Humbling was a nice word, Rahel thought. Humbling along without a care in the world

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Stable markets, unstable world. Efficiency. Everybody hears about it. It's enough to make you want to be pro-inefficiency and pro-corruption.

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

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By then Esthappen and Rahel had learned that the world had other ways of breaking men. They were already familiar with the…

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When she listened to songs that she loved on the radio, something stirred inside her. A liquid ache spread under her skin,…

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To me, there is nothing higher than fiction. Nothing. It is fundamentally who I am. I am a teller of stories. For…

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Is globalization about 'the eradication of world poverty,' or is it a mutant variety of colonialism, remote controlled and digitally operated?

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I am very conscious that, from the time of 'The God of Small Things' was published 10 years ago, we are in…

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The mullahs of the Islamic world and the mullahs of the Hindu world and the mullahs of the Christian world are all…

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With one hand, you're selling the country out to Western multinationals. And with the other, you want to defend your borders with…

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I think it was 50 million people across the world who marched against the war in Iraq. It was perhaps the biggest…

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It's odd how those who dismiss the peace movement as utopian, don't hesitate to proffer the most absurdly dreamy reasons for going…

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Privatisation is presented as being the only alternative to an inefficient, corrupt state. In fact, it is not a choice at all...…

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Being with him made her feel as though her soul had escaped from the narrow confines of her island country into the…

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When the United States invaded Iraq, a New York Times/CBS News survey estimated that 42 percent of the American public believed that…

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Your short-term gains are the rest of the world's long-term disasters - for everybody, including yourselves. And, I'm sorry, I've been saying…

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I would never, ever use a novel to do thinly disguised political information dissemination. For me, all these experiences, they sat in…

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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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Because of the caste system, because of the fact that there is no social link between those who make the decisions and…

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They were not friends, Comdrade Pillai and Inspector Thomas Matthew, and they didn't trust each other. But they understood each other perfectly.…

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Writers imagine that they cull stories from the world. I'm beginning to believe that vanity makes them think so. That it's actually…

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When was the last time the United States won a war? You know, it lost in Vietnam. It's lost in Afghanistan. It's…

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The world's 'freeest' country has the highest number in prison.

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With the certitude of a true believer, Vellya Paapen had assured the twins that there was no such thing in the world…

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We need a new kind of politics. Not the politics of governance, but the politics of resistance. The politics of opposition. The…

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

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Cage the People, Free the Money. The only thing that is allowed to move freely - unimpeded - around the world today…

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Nilekani's technocratic obsession with gathering data is consistent with that of Bill Gates, as though lack of information is what is causing…

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Sometimes I think the world is divided into those who have a comfortable relationship with power and those who have a naturally…

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If you're not religious, then look at it this way. This world of ours is four thousand, six hundred million years old.…

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How carelessly imperial power vivisected ancient civilizations. Palestine and Kashmir are imperial Britain's festering, blood-drenched gifts to the modem world. Both are…

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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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Now we're in a situation where democracy has been taken into the workshop and fixed, remodeled to be market-friendly. So now the…

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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…