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I could weep for a river-valley, and I have. But for a country? Oh man, I don’t know.

Arundhati Roy

People rarely win wars, governments rarely lose them. People get killed. Governments moult and regroup, hydra-headed. They use flags first to shrink-wrap people’s minds and smother thought, and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury their willing dead.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Death Kill Lose Mindset People War Willing Win
Use your art to fight.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Art Fight One Liner
Sometimes there’s truth in old cliches. There can be no real peace without justice. And without resistance there will be no justice.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Justice Old Peace Reality Resistance Truth
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
Nationalism of one kind or another was the cause of most of the genocide of the twentieth century. Flags are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people’s minds and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Clothes Color Death Government Kind Mindset Nation Oneself People
Little events, ordinary things, smashed and reconstituted. Suddenly, they become the bleached bones of a story.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Bone Break Constitution Ordinary Story
Change is one thing. Acceptance is another.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Acceptance Change
What came for them? Not death. Just the end of living.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Death End Live Perspective
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
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
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.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Difference Fundamental Mistake Politics Terrorism
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

Divorce Hell Husband Injustice Mess Mom Myself Oppression Pay Price Violence Woman
Violating human rights is integral to the project of neoliberalism and global hegemony.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Human Integrity Project Right
Some things come with their own punishments.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Karma One Liner Punishment Reality Wisdom
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
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 Politics Struggle Woman

I could weep for a river-valley, and I have. But for a country? Oh man, I don’t know.

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I could weep for a river-valley, and I have. But for a country? Oh man, I don’t know.

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