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The only thing worth globalizing is dissent.

Arundhati Roy

But remember that if the struggle were to resort to violence, it will lose vision, beauty and imagination. Most dangerous of all, it will marginalize and eventually victimize women. And a political struggle that does not have women at the heart of it, above it, below it, and within it is no struggle at all.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Heart Lose Politics Remember Struggle Violence Vision Woman
The world’s ‘freeest’ country has the highest number in prison.
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Country Freedom Prison World
Democracy no longer means what it was meant to. It has been taken back into the workshop. Each of its institutions has been hollowed out, and it has been returned to us as a vehicle for the free market, of the corporations. For the corporations, by the corporations.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Coporation Democracy Freedom Institution Return
Literature is the opposite of a nuclear bomb.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Literature Opposite Weapon
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

Believe Courage Dignity Dreams Freedom Hope Justice Lost Opportunity Romance Time
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
He folded his fear into a perfect rose. He held it out in the palm of his hand. She took it from him and put it in her hair.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Fear Hairs Hands Himself Love Relationship Rose
Fiction and non-fiction are only different techniques of story telling. For reasons I do not fully understand, fiction dances out of me. Non-fiction is wrenched out by the aching, broken world I wake up to every morning.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Break Dance Different Fiction Morning Myself Story Technology Wake Up
Whatever else their faults may be, they were not radical Islamist states – Iraq was not, Syria is not, Libya was not. The most radical fundamentalist Islamist state is, of course, your America’s Saudi Arabia.
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Difference Fundamental Mistake Politics Terrorism
When people say “the people” or “the public” as though it’s the final repository of all morality, I sometimes flinch.
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Moral Myself People Reaction
NGOs are dangerous. They do what the missionaries used to do in Colonial times. They are Trojan Horses. The worse the situation, the more the NGOs.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Dangerous Time Worst
NGOs have a complicated space in neoliberal politics. They are supposed to mop up the anger. Even when they are doing good work, they are supposed to maintain the status quo. They are the missionaries of the corporate world.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Coporate Goodness Politics Space Work World
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
If we were to lose the ability to be emotional, if we were to lose the ability to be angry, to be outraged, we would be robots. And I refuse that.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Ability Angry Emotion Lose Myself
Excitement always leads to tears.
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Destination Excitement One Liner Path Tears
Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.
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Breathe Herself Journey Myself Possible Quiet World
Sometimes there’s truth in old cliches. There can be no real peace without justice. And without resistance there will be no justice.
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Justice Old Peace Reality Resistance Truth
People who promote the free market and growth are far more romantic, and far more ideologically driven and blinded by their vision than somebody who goes in and comments about the beauty of a forest or the stars in the sky.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Freedom Growth People Romantic Sky Stars Vision
The people who created the crisis in the first place will not be the ones that come up with a solution.
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Creation Oneself People Place
We need a new kind of politics. Not the politics of governance, but the politics of resistance. The politics of opposition. The politics of joining hands across the world and preventing certain destruction.
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Destruction Government Kind Need Politics Resistance World
Flags are bits of colored cloth used first to shrinkwrap people’s brains and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead.
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Clothes Color Death People
Railing against the past will not heal us. History has happened. It’s over and done with. All we can do is to change its course by encouraging what we love instead of destroying what we don’t.
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Change Destroy History Love Past
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
Things can change in a day.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Change One Liner
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
Making bombs will only destroy us. It doesn’t matter whether we use them or not. They will destroy us either way.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Destroy Destruction Weapon
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

The only thing worth globalizing is dissent.

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The only thing worth globalizing is dissent.

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