Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

I only really woke up in India. It was my first experience of plenty, strangely enough, because everything in England was rationed.…

— Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

Film is not like a book; it's not a writer's baby at all. So many people have put in their talent, by…

— Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

It's technically extremely difficult to get down what you really mean, not what you think you mean, or what you think sounds…

— Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

The misfortune to be born when I was, where I was. That was a piece of bad luck.

— Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

I always find the first thing that really bothers me when I start a screenplay is, I have to find a different…

— Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

I never really had any close friends in India, and I felt a terrible loneliness and isolation for many years. Westernized Indians…

— Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

First, I was so dazzled and besotted by India. People said the poverty was biblical, and I'm afraid that was my attitude,…

— Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

Perhaps I'm just fickle by nature and get tired of countries the way other women do of husbands or lovers.

— Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

All my early books are written as if I were Indian. In England, I had started writing as if I were English;…

— Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

I am dissatisfied with everything I have ever written and regard it all only as a preparation for that one work which…

— Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

I'm not interested in who am I. I'm interested in what's gone, the disinheritance, what I've been able to become or learn…

— Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

Westernized Indians don't like my books and I tend not to like westernized Indians - so we're quits.

— Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

I like characters who are larger-than-life, whether life-loving women or the artist or guru who grabs everything. But I don't live among…

— Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

The older books were quite light-hearted. But I think most of my novels do end on a deep note of pessimism. Shadows…

— Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

India was a sensation. It was remarkable to see all those parrots flying about, the brilliant foliage and the brilliant sky. It…

— Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

Everyone is so estranged; no one is rooted. That's what I like to write about more than anything else. Everything being so…

— Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

I am a central European with an English education and a deplorable tendency to constant self-analysis. I am irritable and have weak…

— Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

England gave me a language and literature, the basis of what I am as a writer, but when I started writing more…

— Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

England opened up the world of literature for me. Not really having a world of my own, I made up for my…

— Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

I stand before you as a writer without any ground of being out of which to write: really blown about from country…

— Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

India always changes people, and I have been no exception

— Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

Film, for me, is in two stages. One is when I write the script more or less on my own - that's…

— Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

Once a refugee, always a refugee. I can't ever remember not being all right wherever I was, but you don't give your…

— Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

One doesn't choose to become a writer. One is just born that way.

— Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

I was never interested in film. Never. I never even thought of it. I wasn't even a film buff, I didn't see…

— Ruth Prawer Jhabvala