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 More Quotes by Arundhati Roy More Quotes From Arundhati Roy His gratitude widened his smile and bent his back. Arundhati Roy his-smile bent gratitude When she listened to songs that she loved on the radio, something stirred inside her. A liquid ache spread under her skin, and she walked out of the world like a witch. Arundhati Roy skins song world She wore flowers in her hair and carried magic secrets in her eyes. She spoke to no one. She spent hours on the riverbank. She smoked cigarettes and had midnight swims. Arundhati Roy flower eye hair Some things come with their own punishments. Like bedrooms with built-in cupboards. They would all learn more about punishments soon. That they came in different sizes. That some were so big they were like cupboards with built-in bedrooms. You could spend your whole life in them, wandering through dark shelving. Arundhati Roy size punishment dark Smells, like music, hold memories. She breathed deep, and bottled it up for posterity. Arundhati Roy posterity smell memories They were not friends, Comdrade Pillai and Inspector Thomas Matthew, and they didn't trust each other. But they understood each other perfectly. They were both men whom childhood had abandoned without a trace. Men without curiosity. Without doubt. Both in their own way truly, terrifyingly, adult. They looked out into the world and never wondered how it worked, because they knew. They worked it. They were mechanics who serviced different parts of the same machine. Arundhati Roy childhood doubt men He could do only one thing at a time. If he held her, he couldn't kiss her. If he kissed her, he couldn't see her. If he saw her, he couldn't feel her. Arundhati Roy saws kissing feels Have we raised the threshold of horror so high that nothing short of a nuclear strike qualifies as a 'real' war? Are we to spend the rest of our lives in this state of high alert with guns pointed at each other's heads and fingers trembling on the trigger? Arundhati Roy gun real war As she watched him she understood the quality of his beauty. How his labor had shaped him. How the wood he fashioned had fashioned him. Each plank he planed, each nail he drove, each thing he made molded him. Had left its stamp on him. Had given him his strength, his supple grace. Arundhati Roy nails quality grace And the air was full of Thoughts and Things to Say. But at times like these, only the Small Things are ever said. Big Things lurk unsaid inside. Arundhati Roy times-like-these bigs air He walked on water. Perhaps. But could he have *swum* on land? In matching knickers and dark glasses? With his Fountain in a Love-in-Tokyo? In pointy shoes and a puff? Would he have had the imagination? Arundhati Roy shoes land dark Going to Oxford didn't necessarily make a person clever. Arundhati Roy persons clever oxford It was a grand old house, the Ayemenem House, but aloof-looking. As though it had little to do with the people who lived in it. Like an old man with rheumy eyes watching children play, seeing only transience in their shrill elation and their whole-hearted commitment to life. Arundhati Roy eye children commitment They would grow up grappling with ways of living with what happened. They would try to tell themselves that in terms of geological time it was an insignificant event. Just a blink of the Earth Woman's eye. That Worse Things had happened. That Worse Things kept happening. But they would find no comfort in the thought. Arundhati Roy growing-up eye trying If you're not religious, then look at it this way. This world of ours is four thousand, six hundred million years old. It could end in an afternoon. Arundhati Roy religious looks years There is nothing that pleases me more than a beautiful sentence ... It is something that satisfies me. Arundhati Roy please-me please beautiful When she looked at him now, she couldn't help thinking that the man he had become bore so little resemblance to the boy he had been. His smile was the only piece of baggage he had carried with him from boyhood into manhood. Arundhati Roy men boys thinking Margaret Kochamma's tiny, ordered life relinquished itself to this truly baroque bedlam with the quiet gasp of a warm body entering a chilly sea. Arundhati Roy entering body sea Pointed in the wrong direction, trapped outside their own history and unable to retrace their steps because their footprints had been swept away. Arundhati Roy swept-away footprint steps A sparrow lay dead on the backseat. She had found her way through a hole in the windscreen, tempted by some seat-sponge for her nest. She never found her way out. No one noticed her panicked car-window appeals. She died on the backseat, with her legs in the air. Like a joke. Arundhati Roy legs car air
