I am a Maoist sympathiser. I'm not a Maoist ideologue, because the communist movements in history have been just as destructive as capitalism. Arundhati Roy More Quotes by Arundhati Roy More Quotes From Arundhati Roy Being with him made her feel as though her soul had escaped from the narrow confines of her island country into the vast, extravagant spaces of his. He made her feel as though the world belonged to them- as though it lay before them like an opened frog on a dissecting table, begging to be examined. Arundhati Roy space islands country In India, whichever language you write in, the possibility of people not understanding irony or not understanding [remains there]. This as a writer is most terrifying! Arundhati Roy understanding writing people Money need not be our only reward. Arundhati Roy rewards needs To call someone anti-American, indeed, to be anti-American, (or for that matter anti-Indian, or anti-Timbuktuan) is not just racist, it's a failure of the imagination. An inability to see the world in terms other than those that the establishment has set out for you: If you're not a Bushie, you're a Taliban. If you don't love us, you hate us. If you're not Good, you're Evil. If you're not with us, you're with the terrorists. Arundhati Roy hate imagination evil Impelled by feelings that were primal yet paradoxically wholly impersonal. Feelings of contempt born of inchoate, unacknowledged fear--civilization's fear of nature, men's fear of women, power's fear of powerlessness. Man's subliminal urge to destroy what he could neither subdue nor deify. Arundhati Roy feelings men civilization The NGO-ization of politics threatens to turn resistance into a well-mannered, reasonable, salaried, 9-to-5 job. With a few perks thrown in. Real resistance has real consequences. And no salary. Arundhati Roy salary real jobs I do what I do, and write what I write, without calculating what is worth what and so on. Fortunately, I am not a banker or an accountant. I feel that there is a time when a political statement needs to be made and I make it. Arundhati Roy political writing bankers If you look at Indian society, it's a society made up of minorities. There's nobody who's not a minority, whether it's ethnicity, caste or religion. But the whole effort now is to confect a political constituency - an ethnic or a religious constituency that can coalesce into a political majority in order to deal with this model of representative democracy. That process has been a hundred years in the making in this part of the world. Arundhati Roy effort political religious At a time when opportunism is everything, when hope seems lost, when everything boils down to a cynical business deal, we must find the courage to dream. To reclaim romance. The romance of believing in justice, in freedom, and in dignity. For everybody. Arundhati Roy business-deals dream believe In 2001, we were told that the war in Afghanistan was a feminist mission. The marines were liberating Afghan women from the Taliban. Can you really bomb feminism into a country? And now, after 25 years of brutal war - 10 years against the Soviet occupation, 15 years of US occupation - the Taliban is riding back to Kabul and will soon be back to doing business with the United States. Arundhati Roy marine war country The Congress has historically played covert communal politics in order to create what in India we call vote banks where you pit one community against another and so on in order to secure votes. Arundhati Roy india community order As Indian citizens, we subsist on a regular diet of caste massacres and nuclear tests, mosque breakings and fashion shows, church burnings and expanding cell phone networks, bonded labor and the digital revolution, female infanticide and the NASDAQ crash, husbands who continue to burn their wives for dowry and our delectable stockpile of Miss Worlds. What's hard to reconcile oneself to, both personally and politically, is the schizophrenic nature of it. Arundhati Roy fashion cells husband India is still flinching from a cultural insult, still looking for its identity. Arundhati Roy insult india identity With the certitude of a true believer, Vellya Paapen had assured the twins that there was no such thing in the world as a black cat. He said that there were only black cat chaped holes in the universe. Arundhati Roy black cat world Sometimes the state and the constitution are more enlightened than society. Arundhati Roy enlightened constitution sometimes Non-violence is a piece of theatre. You need an audience. What can you do when you have no audience? Arundhati Roy pieces theatre needs When was the last time the United States won a war? You know, it lost in Vietnam. It's lost in Afghanistan. It's lost in Iraq. And it will not be able to contain the situation. It is hemorrhaging. It is now - you know, of course you can continue with drone attacks, and you can continue these targeted killings, but on the ground, a situation is being created which no army - not America, not anybody - can control. And it's just, you know, a combination of such foolishness, such a lack of understanding of culture in the world. Arundhati Roy iraq army war Rahel’s toy wristwatch had the time painted on it. Ten to two. One of her ambitions was to own a watch on which she could change the time whenever she wanted to (which according to her was what Time was meant for in the first place). Arundhati Roy ambition two firsts To stay quiet is as political an act as speaking out. Arundhati Roy speaking-out political quiet I am completely a loner. In my head I want to feel I can be anywhere. There is a sort of recklessness that being a loner allows me. Arundhati Roy loner want feels
