Aseem Desai Quotes

Quick, nervy and jumpy -yet to the children she was as constant as a staff, a tree that can be counted on not to pull up its root and shift in the night. She was the tree that grew in the centre of their lives and in whose shade they lived. ~ Anita Desai

For those who believe in God the matter is simpler still and clearly than anything else: because those who believe in God believe that God is the Creator of the whole Universe and there is nothing that does not come from Him. ~ Morarji Desai

What was a country but the idea of it? ~ Kiran Desai

Politics and friendships are like oil and water, you need a really good blender to make them work. ~ Kush Desai

You lived intensely with others, only to have them disappear overnight, since the shadow class was condemned to movement. The men left for other jobs, towns, got deported, returned home, changed names. Sometimes someone came popping around a corner again, or on the subway then they vanished again. Addresses, phone numbers did not hold. The emptiness Biju felt returned to him over and over, until eventually he made sure not to let friendships sink deep anymore. ~ Kiran Desai

The vegetarian movement is an ancient movement and is not quite a modern one. ~ Morarji Desai

Validation cannot come from outside of you. The fact that you are breathing means that you are enough. ~ Panache Desai

Should humans conquer the mountain or should they wish for the mountain to possess them? ~ Kiran Desai

I think for a few moments. Sometimes I think that the reason I'm not ambitious and I don't care about what my family cares about is that I'm lazy and....not all that smart. Dr. Desai gives me one of those get serious looks. ~ Francisco X. Stork

How could anything be the same? The red of blood lay over the market road in slick pools mingled with a yellow spread of dal someone must have brought in anticipation of a picnic after the parade, and there were flies on it, left behind odd slippers, and a sad pair of broken spectacles, even a tooth. It was rather like the government warning about safety that appeared in the cinema before the movie with the image of a man cycling to work, a poor man but with a wife who loved him, and she had sent his lunch with him in a tiffin container; then came a blowing of horns and small, desperate cycle tinkle, and a messy blur clearing into the silent still image of a spread of food mingled with blood. Those mismatched colors, domesticity shuffled with death, sureness running into the unexpected, kindness replaced by the image of violence, always made the cook feel like throwing up and weeping both together. ~ Kiran Desai

There is only ever one choice. Either you are living from your heart and moving toward your limitless potential, or you are continuing to live in fear and limitation. ~ Panache Desai

...People stop, stare. No one stop and stare if one of your own beggars drop dead in street. No just step over him like he is a stone, or a dog turd and go away quickly. But when they see a white man with golden hair lying on the street, everyone stop, everyone cry, "Hai - hai, - poor boy, call doctor, call ambulance. What has happen, Farrokh-bhai?"..."

- Farrokh said to Baumgartner when he wanted to get rid of the reluctant, overly drugged homeless foreigner out of his restaurant. (Page 167) ~ Anita Desai

From this it follows that con-sideration for other persons or for other living beings is very vital for goodness and want of consideration for other people makes human beings selfish, regardless for other people's good. ~ Morarji Desai

There are moments in each of our lives when something greater - something Incontrovertible - steps in to help us realign with our truest lives and most authentic selves. This perceived crisis or trauma either shakes our world to its core or tears everything apart so that we are launched once again in the direction of our best lives, the most authentic expression of who we are each here to be. ~ Panache Desai

I believe in preventing cruelty to all living beings in any form. ~ Morarji Desai

An expert gives an objective view. He gives his own view. ~ Morarji Desai

Her eyes opened at this sight against her will and she looked around the room almost in fear. But it was dark and shadowy, shaded by the bamboo screen at the door, the damp rush mats at the windows, the old heavy curtains and the spotted, peeling walls, and in their shade she saw how she loved him, loved Raja and Tara and all of them who had lived in this house with her. There could be no love more deep and full and wide than this one, she knew. No other love had started so far back in time and had had so much time in which to grow and spread. They were really all parts of her, inseparable, so many aspects of her as she was of them, so that the anger or the disappointment she felt in them was only the anger and disappointment she felt at herself. Whatever hurt they felt, she felt. Whatever diminished them, diminished her. What attacked them, attacked her. Nor was there anyone else on earth whom she was willing to forgive more readily or completely, or defend more instinctively and instantly. She could hardly believe, at that moment, that she would Iive on after they did or they would continue after she had ended. If such an unimaginable phenomenon could take place, then surely they would remain flawed, damaged for life. The wholeness of the pattern, its perfection, would be gone.
She lay absolutely still, almost ceasing to breathe, afraid to diminish by even a breath the wholeness of that love. ~ Anita Desai

My style of writing is to allow the story to unfold on its own. I try not to structure my work too rigidly. ~ Anita Desai

A man wasn't equal to an animal, not one particle of him. Human life was stinking corrupt, and meanwhile there were beautiful creatures who lived with delicacy on the earth without doing anyone harm. "We should be dying." the judge almost wept. ~ Kiran Desai

Not money, it's the service that makes you rich. ~ Rupali Desai

If we do not want to be pained by anybody we must not pain anybody; and how can man consider himself humane if he wants to live at the cost of others. ~ Morarji Desai

All of the third-world flights docked here, families waiting days for their connections, squatting on the floor in big bacterial clumps, and it was a long trek to where the European-North American travelers came and went, making those brisk, no-nonsense flights with extra leg-room and private TV, whizzing over for a single meeting in such a manner that it was truly hard to imagine they were shitting-peeing, bleeding-weeping humans at all. Silk and cashmere, bleached teeth, Prozac, laptops, and a sandwich for their lunch named the Milano. ~ Kiran Desai

With your lunch box, do not forget to carry courtesy, respect, and gratitude from home! ~ Rupali Desai

The present changes the past. Looking back you do not find what you left behind. ~ Kiran Desai

India's present challenges cannot be understood or addressed unless they are viewed from a historical perspective. ~ Aseem Shrivastava

When he died, I went about like a ragged crow telling strangers, "My father died, my father died." My indiscretion embarrassed me, but I could not help it. Without my father on his Delhi rooftop, why was I here? Without him there, why should I go back? Without that ache between us, what was I made of? ~ Kiran Desai

I try to trace the connection between the characters and that way a story or plot emerges. ~ Anita Desai

Now I understand why you do not wish to marry. You have dedicated your life to others -- to your sick brother and your aged aunt and your little brother who will be dependent on you all his life. You have sacrificed your own life for them. ~ Anita Desai

Nonviolence presupposes a level of humanness--however low it may be, in every human being. ~ Narayan Desai

The fact was that one was left empty-handed. There was no system to soothe the unfairness of things; justice was without scope; it might snag the stealer of chickens, but great evasive crimes would have to be dismissed because, if identified and netted, they would bring down the entire structure of so-called civilization. For crimes that took place in the monstrous dealings between nations, for crimes that took place in those intimate spaces between two people without a witness ... ~ Kiran Desai

Within you lies a power that is so great, so profound, so vibrant, and closer within your reach then you ever thought possible. ~ Kush Desai

I do think that the modern India does belong to writers who are living in India. ~ Kiran Desai

And it now occurred to me that maybe the whole point was, in fact, to lose yourself. But not in the sense of confusion
in the sense of connection to something bigger than yourself ... Getting lost to be found. ~ Tanuja Desai Hidier

The Indian diaspora is a wonderful place to write from, and I am lucky to be part of it. ~ Kiran Desai

It is, therefore, a fact that anybody who wants to realise Truth or who wants to be humane, must follow non-violent ways of life, otherwise he will not be able to reach the Truth. ~ Morarji Desai

Shame is the undercurrent that keeps you living in the belief that you are unworthy of all the bounty life has to offer. Somewhere along the way, we have internalized the belief that we are - in our deepest selves - defective and wrong. Shame is not a natural emotion. Babies aren't born feeling shame. We manufacture it within ourselves, as punishment for not adhering to the norms of society…Just for today, see what it feels like to open those clenched fists - that clenched heart - and receive every good thing ~ Panache Desai

showing off is always sweet when you have things worth showing off ~ Pavan Desai

What is this all about,' asked Sai, but her mouth couldn't address her ear in the tumult; her mind couldn't talk to her heart. 'Shame on myself,' she said ... Who was she ... she with her self-importance, her demand for happiness, yelling it at fate, at the deaf heavens, screaming for her joy to be brought forth..?
How dare ... How dare you not ...
Why shouldn't I have ... How dare ... I deserve ... Her small greedy soul ... Her tantrums and fits ... Her mean tears ... Her crying, enough for all the sadness in the world, was only for herself. Life wasn't single in its purpose ... or even its direction ... The simplicity of what she'd been taught wouldn't hold. Never again could she think there was but one narrative and that this narrative belonged only to herself, that she might create her own tiny happiness and live safely within it. ~ Kiran Desai

The moon that hung over the garden like some great priceless pearl, flawed and blemished with grey shadowy ridges as only a very great beauty can risk being. ~ Anita Desai