R.K. Narayan Quotes

A man who preferred to dress like a permanent tourist was just what a guide passionately looked for all his life. You may want to ask why I became a guide or when. I was a guide for the same reason as someone else is a signaler, porter, or guard. It is fated thus. Don't laugh at my railway associations. The railways got into my blood very early in life. Engines with their tremendous clanging

Society presses upon us all the time. The progress of the last half century is the progress of the frog out of his well.

I returned from the village. The house seemed unbearably dull. But I bore it. "There is no escape from loneliness and separation...." I told myself often. "Wife, child, brothers, parents, friends.... We come together only to go apart again. It is one continuous movement. They move away from us as we move away from them. The law of life can't be avoided. The law comes into operation the moment we detach ourselves from our mother's womb. All struggle and misery in life is due to our attempt to arrest this law or get away from it or in allowing ourselves to be hurt by it. The fact must be recognized. A profound unmitigated loneliness is the only truth of life. All else is false.

In a few months I was a seasoned guide. I had viewed myself as an amateur guide and a professional shopman, but now gradually I began to think of myself as a part-time shop-keeper and a full-time tourist guide.

You know why I am here? asked the headmaster.
Swaminathan searched for an answer: the headmaster might be there to receive letters from boy's parents; he might be there to flay Ebenzars alive; he might be there to deliver six cuts with his cane every Monday at twelve o'clock. And above all why this question?

He(Samuel, known as 'the Pea') was as apprehensive, weak and nervous about things as Swaminathan was. The bond between them was laughter. They were able to see together the same absurdities and incongruities in things. The most trivial and unnoticeable thing to others would tickle them to death.

If someone should ask, "how should an Opposition function?" the best answer would be, "in the manner of a traditional mother-in-law who watches the performance of household work by a daughter-in-law and follows her about with her comments.

By the twelfth day of his fast, Raju himself has become a tourist attraction. Before an enormous crowd and an American television crew, the starving man is helped down to the drought-stricken river to pray:

Of his views on education, he says, 'My natural aversion to academic education was further strengthened when I came across an essay by Rabindranath Tagore on education. It confirmed my own precocious conclusions on the subject. I liked to be free to read what I please and not be examined at all.' After

At this moment, let us not forget that my authority has been challenged not by a warrior but by a monkey!

Those who believe in destiny and those who drift without such beliefs are alike the worst among men; only those who act and perform what is right for their station in life are worthy of praise. Man

This work opens the eyes of the world blinded by ignorance. As the sun dispels darkness, so does Bharata by its exposition of religion, duty, action, contemplation, and so forth. As the full moon by shedding soft light helps the buds of the lotus to open, so this Purana by its exposition expands the human intellect. The lamp of history illumines the 'whole mansion of the womb of Nature.' - Vyasa

The sun set beyond thesea, so says the poet - and when a poet mentions a sea, we have to accept it; no harm in letting a poet describe his vision, no need to question his geography.

Friendship was another illusion like love, though it did not reach the same mad heights. People pretended that they were friends, when the fact was they were brought together by force of circumstances.

No one ever accepts criticism so cheerfully. Neither the man who utters it nor the man who invites it really means it.

There are no more surprises and shocks in life, so that I watch the flame without agitation. For me the greatest reality is this and nothing else... Nothing else will worry or interest me in life hereafter.

Rama glanced at her whenever a beautiful object caught his eye. Every tint of the sky, every shape of a flower or bud, every elegant form of a creeper reminded him of some aspect or other of Sita's person.

This education has reduced us to a nation of morons; we were strangers to our own culture and camp followers of another culture, feeding on leavings and garbage ... What about our own roots? ... I am up against the system, the whole method and approach of a system of education which makes us morons, cultural morons, but efficient clerks for all your business and administration offices.

Swaminathan had never thought that this story contained a moral. But now he felt that it must have one since the question paper mentioned it.

Certain things acquired an evil complexion if phrased, but remained harmless in the mind.

Death and its associates, after the initial shock, produce callousness.

But there is this peculiarity about heat: it appears to affect only those that think of it.

Even when you realize that the one before you is an enemy and must be treated sternly, do not hurt with words.

If he(Mani) were Swaminathan, he would have closed the whole incident at the beginning by hurling an ink-bottle, if nothing bigger was available, at the teacher.

Do you realize how few ever really understand how fortunate they are in their circumstances?

But you are not my wife. You are a woman who will go to bed with anyone who flatters your antics. That's

Project is a self-contained phrase and may or may not be capable of elaboration.

people only follow their inclinations, and sooner or later find their reward or retribution. That's the natural law of life,

everyone is acting a part all the time, knowingly or unknowingly.

But it was like hiding a corpse. I've come to the conclusion that nothing in this world can be hidden or suppressed. All such attempts are like holding an umbrella to conceal the sun.

Then there was Mani, the Mighty Good-For-Nothing. He towered above all the other boys of the class. He seldom brought any books to the class, and never bothered about homework. He came to the class, monopolized the last bench, ans slept bravely. No teacher ever tried to prod him.

What can we do with a creature who returns to his doom with such a free heart?

In a world where we are accustomed to rivalries over possession, authority, and borders, and people clashing over the issue, "Ours," or "Mine, not yours," it is rather strange to find two people debating whose the kingdom is not, and asserting: "Yours, not mine.

I am up against the system, the whole method & approach of a system of education which makes us morons, cultural morons, but efficient clerks for all your business and administrative offices. This education had reduced us to a nation of morons; we were strangers to our own culture and camp followers of another culture, feeding on leavings & garbage ...

It seems to me that we generally do not have a correct measure of our own wisdom.

The faint aroma of gum and calico that hangs about a library is as the fragrance of incense to me. I think the most beautiful sight is the gilt-edged backs of a row of books on a shelf. The alley between two well-stocked shelves in a hall fills me with the same delight as passing through a silent avenue of trees. The colour of a binding-cloth and its smooth texture gives me the same pleasure as touching a flower on its stalk. A good library hall has an atmosphere which elates. I have seen one or two University Libraries that have the same atmosphere as a chapel, with large windows, great trees outside, and glass doors sliding on noiseless hinges.

The compartment built to 'seat 8 passengers; 4 British Troops, or 6 Indian Troops' now carried only nine.

You threw a stone into a gutter it would only spurt filth in your face.

We come together only to go apart again. The law of life can't be avoided. The law comes into operation the moment we detach ourselves from our mother's womb. All struggle & misery in life is due to our attempt to arrest this law or get away from it or in allowing ourselves to be hurt by it. The fact must be recognized. A profound unmitigated loneliness is the only truth of life. All else is false. The law of life. No sense in battling against it ...

The next three days I was very busy. My table was placed in the front room of the new house. All my papers and books were arranged neatly. My clothes hung on a peg. The rest of the house was swept and cleaned.

For all its idyllic charm, and in the joy of companionship of Sita, Rama never lost sight of his main purpose in settling down in this region - he had come here to encounter and destroy the asuras, the fiends who infested this area, causing suffering and hardship to all the good souls who only wanted to be left alone to pursue their spiritual aims in peace. Rama's whole purpose of incarnation was ultimately to destroy Ravana, the chief of the asuras, abolish fear from the hearts of men and gods, and establish peace, gentleness, and justice in the world.

Life is about making right things and going on..

You become writer by writing. It is a yoga.