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I am a woman who is a granddaughter of a lady who used to be beaten on the head by her husband, of a mother who went through hell because she was divorced and had to bring up these kids. And I can take 10 men out to lunch and pay the bill, and nobody even thinks twice about it. So don’t mess with me.

Arundhati Roy

The American people ought to know that it is not them, but their government’s policies, that are so hated.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Government Hate People Politics
Use your art to fight.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Art Fight One Liner
The people who created the crisis in the first place will not be the ones that come up with a solution.
ARUNDHATI ROY

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

Beautiful Change Deep Destruction Inspirational
Pity the nation that has to silence its writers for speaking their minds. Pity the nation that needs to jail those who ask for justice, while communal killers, mass murderers, corporate scamsters, looters, rapists, and those who prey on the poorest of the poor, roam free.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Corruption Death Freedom Injustice Justice Mindset Nation Poor Prison Silence Talk Writing
States have invested themselves with the right to legitimise violence – so who gets criminalised and delegitimised? Only – or well that’s excessive – usually, the resistance.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Investment Legal Resistence Right Violence
When people say “the people” or “the public” as though it’s the final repository of all morality, I sometimes flinch.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Moral Myself People Reaction
Wars are never fought for altruistic reasons. They’re usually fought for hegemony, for business. And then of course there’s the business of war.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Business Reason War
The trouble is that once you see it, you can’t unsee it. And once you’ve seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing, becomes as political an act as speaking out. There’s no innocence. Either way, you’re accountable.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Innocent Politics Quiet Responsibility See Trouble Yourself
Human rights are fundamental rights, they are the minimum, the very least we demand. Too often, they become the goal itself. What should be the minimum becomes the maximum – all we are supposed to expect – but human rights aren’t enough. The goal is, and must always be, justice.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Demand Enough Expectation Fundamental Human Justice Right
It was a time when the unthinkable became the thinkable and the impossible really happened.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Impossible Inspirational Thinking Time
Flags are bits of colored cloth used first to shrinkwrap people’s brains and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Clothes Color Death People
As a woman who grew up in a village in India, I’ve spent my whole life fighting tradition. There’s no way that I want to be a traditional Indian housewife.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Career Fight Grow Up Job Life Myself Tradition Woman
I feel ashamed that the new, nuclear, neo-liberal India thinks of itself as a ‘natural ally’ of Israel. Ever since India began to call itself an emerging superpower, it has become a slavish, groveling satellite state of the US.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Feeling Shame Slave Thinking
The idea of justice – even just dreaming of justice – is revolutionary. The language of human rights tends to accept a status quo that is intrinsically unjust – and then tries to make it more accountable.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Dreams Human Ideas Justice Language Responsibilty Revolution Right
Nationalism of one kind or another was the cause of most of the genocide of the twentieth century.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Death Kind Nation Reason War

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