Arundhati Roy quote: "They only asked for punishments that fitted their crimes. Not ones that came like cupboards with built-in bedrooms. Not ones you spent your whole life in, wandering through its maze of shelves."

Pity the nation that has to silence its writers for speaking their minds.
ARUNDHATI ROY

I think the kind of landscape that you grew up in, it lives with you. I don't think it's tru...
ARUNDHATI ROY

At times there's something so precise and mathematically chilling about nationalism.

Buil...
ARUNDHATI ROY

Some writers like to boil down headlines of liberal newspapers into fiction, so they say there shoul...
ARUNDHATI ROY

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

You have come to a stage where you almost have to work on yourself. You know, on finding some tranqu...
ARUNDHATI ROY

Electricity produced in the name of the poor is consumed by the rich with endless appetites,
ARUNDHATI ROY

I think many people were surprised by the victory of the Congress, because it was really hard to see...
ARUNDHATI ROY

The Congress has historically played covert communal politics in order to create what in India we ca...
ARUNDHATI ROY

Why not have your nuclear bombs in your briefcase? All of these policies that America upholds, nucle...
ARUNDHATI ROY

Torture has been privatized now, so you have obviously the whole scandal in America about the abuse ...
ARUNDHATI ROY

The NBA for the last 20 years approached every single institutional democratic body.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Another religion turned against itself, another edifice constructed by the human mind, decimated by ...
ARUNDHATI ROY

You would remember in October 2000 the court had given its judgement, it had told the government giv...
ARUNDHATI ROY

Refuse to wave the flag Refuse to move the missiles from the warehouse to the dock.
ARUNDHATI ROY

10 million people marched against the war on 5 continents in the most united opposition to war ever ...
ARUNDHATI ROY

Bring to a boil Add oil Then bomb Ms Roy is author of the God of Small Things.
ARUNDHATI ROY

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

But when they made love he was offended by her eyes. They behaved as though they belonged to someone...
ARUNDHATI ROY

If you're happy in a dream, does that count?
ARUNDHATI ROY

...the secret of the Great Stories is that they have no secrets. The Great Stories are the on...
ARUNDHATI ROY

In light of activists' global boycotts of war profiteers, globalization begins to look evitable. We ...
ARUNDHATI ROY

I do what I do, and write what I write, without calculating what is worth what and so on. Fortunatel...
ARUNDHATI ROY

Sometimes I think the world is divided into those who have a comfortable relationship with power and...
ARUNDHATI ROY

The mullahs of the Islamic world and the mullahs of the Hindu world and the mullahs of the Christian...
ARUNDHATI ROY

Flags are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people’s minds & the...
ARUNDHATI ROY

Change is one thing. Acceptance is another.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Everybody can't have the life of a normal, average American person in India - they can't. So...
ARUNDHATI ROY

She wore flowers in her hair and carried magic secrets in her eyes. She spoke to no one. She spent h...
ARUNDHATI ROY

There are people who have comfortable relationships with power and people with natural antagonism to...
ARUNDHATI ROY

In California, there are huge problems because of dams. I'm against big dams, per se, because I ...
ARUNDHATI ROY

For many people, the family is portrayed as the settled place of reasonable safety, but as anyone wh...
ARUNDHATI ROY

I'm a social cripple in a cocktail party. My idea of a nightmare is people standing very elegant...
ARUNDHATI ROY

The moment I saw her, a part of me walked out of my body and wrapped itself around her. And there it...
ARUNDHATI ROY

I would never, ever use a novel to do thinly disguised political information dissemination. For me, ...
ARUNDHATI ROY

I am very conscious that, from the time of 'The God of Small Things' was published 10 years ...
ARUNDHATI ROY

As Estha stirred the thick jam he thought Two Thoughts and the Two Thoughts he thought were these: ARUNDHATI ROY

It is curious how sometimes the memory of death lives on for so much longer than the memory of the l...
ARUNDHATI ROY

Perhaps it’s true that things can change in a day. That a few dozen hours can affect the outcome o...
ARUNDHATI ROY

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

When a symbol unmoors itself from what it symbolizes, it loses meaning. It becomes ineffective
ARUNDHATI ROY

My mother is like a character who escaped from the set of a Fellini film. She's a whole performi...
ARUNDHATI ROY

I'm living to the edges of my fingernails, using everything I have. It's impossible for me t...
ARUNDHATI ROY

I think people ease into this careerist professionalism, so if you're a writer it's your job...
ARUNDHATI ROY

The Occupy movement found places where people who were feeling that anger could come and share it - ...
ARUNDHATI ROY

Democracy no longer means what it was meant to. It has been taken back into the workshop. Each of it...
ARUNDHATI ROY

In a way, writing is an incredible act of individualism, producing your language, and yet to use it ...
ARUNDHATI ROY

To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable ...
ARUNDHATI ROY

If he touched her, he couldn't talk to her, if he loved her he couldn't leave, if he spoke he couldn...
ARUNDHATI ROY

Wars are never fought for altruistic reasons.
ARUNDHATI ROY

There's really no such thing as the 'voiceless'. There are only the deliberately silenced, or the pr...
ARUNDHATI ROY

But what was there to say?

Only that there were tears. Only that Quietness and Emptiness ...
ARUNDHATI ROY

Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen....
ARUNDHATI ROY

Caste is about dividing people up in ways that preclude every form of solidarity, because even in th...
ARUNDHATI ROY

Have we raised the threshold of horror so high that nothing short of a nuclear strike qualifies as a...
ARUNDHATI ROY

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

Where are these people supposed to go? This is a peaceful movement but if you're non-violent, nobody...
ARUNDHATI ROY

The fact is that America's weapons systems have made it impossible for anybody to confront it milita...
ARUNDHATI ROY

Privatisation is presented as being the only alternative to an inefficient, corrupt state. In fact, ...
ARUNDHATI ROY

You begin to realize that hypocrisy is not a terrible thing when you see what overt fascism is compa...
ARUNDHATI ROY

What if he's right? We've seen great countries fall into ruin virtually overnight. What if we're nex...
ARUNDHATI ROY

Colorful demonstrations and weekend marches are vital but alone are not powerful enough to stop wars...
ARUNDHATI ROY

It is after all so easy to shatter a story. To break a chain of thought. To ruin a fragment of a dre...
ARUNDHATI ROY

I am completely a loner. In my head I want to feel I can be anywhere. There is a sort of recklessnes...
ARUNDHATI ROY

It's being made out that the whole point of the war was to topple the Taliban regime and liberate Af...
ARUNDHATI ROY

People are so isolated, and so alone, and so suspicious, and so competitive with each other, and so ...
ARUNDHATI ROY

Do you think that the people of South Africa, or anywhere on the continent of Africa, or India, or P...
ARUNDHATI ROY

If we were to lose the ability to be emotional, if we were to lose the ability to be angry, to be ou...
ARUNDHATI ROY

I don't want to play these games of statistics any more; I have done that. I don't want to b...
ARUNDHATI ROY

I'm not ambitious. I don't want to get anywhere, I don't want anything more. I sometimes...
ARUNDHATI ROY

We're told, often enough, that as a species we are poised on the edge of the abyss. It's possible th...
ARUNDHATI ROY

There can be nothing more humiliating for a writer of fiction to have to do than restate a case that...
ARUNDHATI ROY

Years of imprisoning and beheading writers never succeeded in shutting them out. However, placing th...
ARUNDHATI ROY

All my books are accidental books - they come from reacting to things and thinking about things and ...
ARUNDHATI ROY

Enemies can't break your spirit, only friends can.
ARUNDHATI ROY

The only dream worth having, I told her, is to dream that you will live while you're alive and die o...
ARUNDHATI ROY

To be present in history, even as nothing more than a chuckle, was a universe away from being absent...
ARUNDHATI ROY

Cow, goat, chicken, lamb . . . only slaves eat like this,’ Musa said, heaping an impolite amount o...
ARUNDHATI ROY

And there it was again. Another religion turned against itself. Another edifice constructed by the h...
ARUNDHATI ROY

Little events, ordinary things, smashed and reconstituted. Suddenly, they become the bleached bones ...
ARUNDHATI ROY

There are things that you can't do - like writing letters to a part of yourself. To your feet or hai...
ARUNDHATI ROY

Her grief grieved her. His devastated her.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Being with him made her feel as though her soul had escaped from the narrow confines of her island c...
ARUNDHATI ROY

It was a time when the unthinkable became the thinkable and the impossible really happened
ARUNDHATI ROY

Writers imagine that they cull stories from the world. I'm beginning to believe that vanity makes th...
ARUNDHATI ROY

Nothing mattered much. Nothing much mattered. And the less it mattered the less it mattered. It was ...
ARUNDHATI ROY

Some things come with their own punishments.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Ammu said that human beings were creatures of habit, and it was amazing the kind of things one could...
ARUNDHATI ROY

Things can change in a day.
ARUNDHATI ROY

There is a war that makes us adore our conquerors and despise ourselves.
ARUNDHATI ROY

He folded his fear into a perfect rose. He held it out in the palm of his hand. She took it from him...
ARUNDHATI ROY

The way her body existed only where he touched her. The rest of her was smoke.
ARUNDHATI ROY

This was the trouble with families. Like invidious doctors, they knew just where it hurt.
ARUNDHATI ROY

And the air was full of Thoughts and Things to Say. But at times like these, only the Small Things a...
ARUNDHATI ROY

D’you know what happens when you hurt people?’ Ammu said. ‘When you hurt people, they begin to...
ARUNDHATI ROY

The two men had a conversation. Brief, cryptic, to the point. As though they had exchanged numbers a...
ARUNDHATI ROY

You may be right after all," I said to him in the kitchen. "You may be right, but you'll never win."...
ARUNDHATI ROY

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

Insanity hovered close at hand, like an eager waiter at an expensive restaurant.
ARUNDHATI ROY

When you say things like, 'We have to wipe out the Taliban,' what does that mean? The Taliba...
ARUNDHATI ROY

They visited him in saris, clumping gracelessly through red mud and long grass ... and introduced th...
ARUNDHATI ROY

She viewed ethnic cleansing, famine and genocide as direct threats to her furniture.
ARUNDHATI ROY

The steel door of the incinerator went up and the muted hum of the eternal fire became a red roaring...
ARUNDHATI ROY

Only that once again they broke the Love Laws. That lay down who should be loved. And how. And how m...
ARUNDHATI ROY

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

It is true that success is the most boring thing, it is tinny and brittle, failure runs deeper. Succ...
ARUNDHATI ROY

Once you understand the process of corporate globalization, you have to see that what happened in Ar...
ARUNDHATI ROY

How can you measure progress if you don't know what it costs and who has paid for it? How can the "m...
ARUNDHATI ROY

Who can know from the word goodbye what kind of parting is in store for us.
ARUNDHATI ROY

I am weary of worldly gatherings, O Lord What pleasure in them, when the light in my heart is gone? ...
ARUNDHATI ROY

All they have to do is to turn around and shoot. All the people have to do is to lie down and die.
ARUNDHATI ROY

I use the word love loosely, and only because my vocabulary is unequal to the task of describing the...
ARUNDHATI ROY

Love, after all, is the ingredient that separates a sacrifice from ordinary, everyday butchery.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Trees raised their naked, mottled branches to the sky like mourners stilled in attitudes of grief.
ARUNDHATI ROY

She gave the impression that she had somehow slipped off her leash. As though she was taking herself...
ARUNDHATI ROY

She wasn’t a woman who smiled and said hello.
ARUNDHATI ROY

She wondered how to un-know certain things, certain specific things that she knew but did not wish t...
ARUNDHATI ROY

Dear Doctor,

If you like you can change every inch of me. I'm just a story.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Even in the most uneventful of our lives, we are called upon to choose our battles...
ARUNDHATI ROY

They had always fitted together like pieces of an unsolved (and perhaps unsolvable) puzzle- the smok...
ARUNDHATI ROY

She knew he’d be back. No matter how elaborate its charade, she recognized loneliness when she saw...
ARUNDHATI ROY

NGOs have a complicated space in neoliberal politics. They are supposed to mop up the anger. Even wh...
ARUNDHATI ROY

Either way, change will come. It could be bloody, or it could be beautiful. It depends on us.
ARUNDHATI ROY

The boat that Ammu would use to cross the river. To love by night the man her children loved by day.
ARUNDHATI ROY

When borrowers anticipate that politicians might cancel their loans, they stop paying.
ARUNDHATI BHATTACHARYA

One of the big lessons I have learnt from my life is that things are never as difficult as they seem...
ARUNDHATI BHATTACHARYA

Children should be taught in school that you should have all kinds of asset classes in your portfoli...
ARUNDHATI BHATTACHARYA

ATM is still a cash channel; we want to migrate it to the digital channel.
ARUNDHATI BHATTACHARYA

Your ability will get you the job, but you also need to have age on your side. So if you started you...
ARUNDHATI BHATTACHARYA

At SBI, we say that if you need a project to be done, you need to be determined that it needs to be ...
ARUNDHATI BHATTACHARYA

If you are satisfied, you will never see any more progress. One remains dissatisfied, but that doesn...
ARUNDHATI BHATTACHARYA

Even for the people in the bank into which the other banks are merging, they also have a lot of appr...
ARUNDHATI BHATTACHARYA

Multiple mergers can be challenging because people come from different backgrounds.
ARUNDHATI BHATTACHARYA

In any merger, the biggest challenge is always integration of human resources because the people who...
ARUNDHATI BHATTACHARYA

India has a very young population which is comfortable doing business on a screen than do it one on ...
ARUNDHATI BHATTACHARYA

India does not have a problem of people grabbing share from a fixed pie. India is one of the few nat...
ARUNDHATI BHATTACHARYA

Senior officials are always looking for good juniors, so when the opportunity comes, they give you t...
ARUNDHATI BHATTACHARYA

Lending rate is a function of both liquidity as well as credit demand.
ARUNDHATI BHATTACHARYA

A maturing process, and growth, is always painful. You ask any teenager, they will tell you, and it&...
ARUNDHATI BHATTACHARYA

We have been partners in nation-building and take our role in building the nation very proudly.
ARUNDHATI BHATTACHARYA

It is too expensive to have a bricks and mortar presence everywhere.
ARUNDHATI BHATTACHARYA

Most of the time, women believe that what lies ahead is a precipice. Whereas, if you continue to dri...
ARUNDHATI BHATTACHARYA

If you go to any boardroom... the women are, by far, outnumbered by the men.
ARUNDHATI BHATTACHARYA

Some amount of support from government and regulator is required when you are looking at resolving s...
ARUNDHATI BHATTACHARYA

If you start from the farm sector, we need much better investments and capital creation on land. We ...
ARUNDHATI BHATTACHARYA

In India, women are still the primary caregivers. Whether it be for children, whether it be for old ...
ARUNDHATI BHATTACHARYA

In order to ensure long-term investment, it is important to make infrastructure as transparent and a...
ARUNDHATI BHATTACHARYA

To tell you the truth, if you're looking at rising pretty high, then you need to find a way of t...
ARUNDHATI BHATTACHARYA

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi turned the narrative around on demonetisation very quickly by pr...
ARUNDHATI BHATTACHARYA

Theoretically, every probationary officer has a chance to become chairman.
ARUNDHATI BHATTACHARYA

Every Dog has a day and every human has a life. It all depends on what you want to be. The strange t...
ROY

Pop Art looks out into the world. It doesn't look like a painting of something, it looks like th...
ROY LICHTENSTEIN

What's a butterfly garden without butterflies?
ROY ROGERS

Who is a professional? A professional is someone who has a combination of competence, confidence and...
BUNKER ROY

Art doesn't transform. It just plain forms.
ROY LICHTENSTEIN

Gentlemen, I find the law very explicit on murdering your fellow man, but there's nothing here a...
ROY BEAN

Hang 'em first, try 'em later.
ROY BEAN

And Fall, with her yeller harvest moon and the hills growin' brown and golden under a sinkin'...
ROY BEAN

I know the law... I am it's greatest transgressor.
ROY BEAN

Time will pass and seasons will come and go.
ROY BEAN

The first voice they hear is mine, the first touch they feel is mine, the first human face they see ...
ROY HORN

I don't want to play games with anybody, to our fans, to Pierre Lacroix, or any other NHL team t...
PATRICK ROY

A big part of my decision is not made about whether I'm able to coach in the NHL or if I'm r...
PATRICK ROY

I adore this adventure, I adore working with youth. For me it's a daily challenge, working to he...
PATRICK ROY

He punched me. If that's his best punch, he'll be in trouble some day.
PATRICK ROY

My quality of life here in Quebec City is extraordinary.
PATRICK ROY

I am really focused on how I can improve myself and the world around me.
RACHEL ROY

I have always admired the way women put outfits together.
RACHEL ROY

I always keep a woman's body in mind, accentuating her best features.
RACHEL ROY

I care about how you feel when you're wearing something, because I think that if you feel confid...
RACHEL ROY

I dress women the way I see them and the way I envision them from day one, thus my customer knows th...
RACHEL ROY

If you want to play it safe, mix a lot of colors in the same tone and that is such an easy way to fe...
RACHEL ROY

I believe clothing tell a story.
RACHEL ROY

I am inspired by life, past experiences, what's to come, women around me, art, colors, paintings...
RACHEL ROY

You should always feel confident in everything you wear, no matter what trend you fit or don't f...
RACHEL ROY

Not everyone has to be a model and a designer, there are so many other options that are great and lo...
RACHEL ROY

I've always loved fashion so much and I didn't have access to the kind of fashion I really w...
RACHEL ROY

I realize I never stand out in a room unless I'm feeling balanced, centered and happy. It sounds...
RACHEL ROY

As far as things I avoid, I always avoid following trends just because they're trends.
RACHEL ROY

I think that a woman wears so many hats, we have so many aspects to us that we're not just one t...
RACHEL ROY

If I didn't love the hourglass, I wouldn't love myself.
RACHEL ROY

When I look at pictures when I was younger, I do the quintessential cringe.
RACHEL ROY

I would not invest in any shoe that is too trendy.
RACHEL ROY

I'm thankful I grew up the way I did. It made me a hard worker and insightful to other people...
RACHEL ROY

At the end of the day, I want to create collections that, although I am inspired by very creative wo...
RACHEL ROY

Because my business life is so busy, my home is really my sanctuary. That is where I reflect and spe...
RACHEL ROY

There's nothing wrong with looking like a woman and going in the workplace and doing everything ...
RACHEL ROY

I'm inspired by different cultures around the world and love to incorporate these facets into my...
RACHEL ROY

I love to smell like roses, literally all day!
RACHEL ROY

Only the lonely know the way I feel tonight.
ROY ORBISON

Every song has a bouquet, which is the music. If you can put words with something that is really apt...
ROY HARPER

I've really learned a lot, really learned a lot, love is like a stove, burns you when it's h...
ROY ORBISON

One knows less about one's own destiny than about anything else on earth.
GABRIELLE ROY

The main engagement of the writer is towards truthfulness; therefore he must keep his mind and his j...
GABRIELLE ROY

My great hope would be that Quebec would realize itself fully as a distinct part of Canada, and stay...
GABRIELLE ROY

Don't be a blueprint. Be an original.
ROY ACUFF

In politics, being ridiculous is more damaging than being extreme.
ROY HATTERSLEY

Beauty when unadorned is adorned the most.
ROY THOMPSON

When you encourage others, you boost their self-esteem, enhance their self-confidence, make them wor...
ROY BENNETT

Stay strong, stay positive, and never give up.
ROY BENNETT

They only asked for punishments that fitted their crimes. Not ones that came like cupboards with built-in bedrooms. Not ones you spent your whole life in, wandering through its maze of shelves.

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Arundhati Roy

They only asked for punishments that fitted their crimes. Not ones that came like cupboards with built-in bedrooms. Not ones you spent your whole life in, wandering through its maze of shelves.

Arundhati Roy

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