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 ROYFiction is truth. I think fiction is the truest thing there ever was. My whole effort is to remove that distinction. The writer is the midwife of understanding. It’s very important for me to tell politics like a story, to make it real.
More Arundhati Roy Quotes
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I am completely a loner. In my head I want to feel I can be anywhere. There is a sort of recklessness that being a loner allows me.
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The crisis of modern democracy is a profound one. Free elections, a free press and an independent judiciary mean little when the free market has reduced them to commodities available on sale to the highest bidder.
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Privatization is presented as being the only alternative to an inefficient, corrupt state. In fact, it is not a choice at all… it is a mutually profitable business contract between the private company (preferably foreign) and the ruling elite of the Third World.
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Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.
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The American people ought to know that it is not them, but their government’s policies, that are so hated.
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Making bombs will only destroy us. It doesn’t matter whether we use them or not. They will destroy us either way.
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Either way, change will come. It could be bloody, or it could be beautiful. It depends on us.
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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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Anything’s possible in Human Nature …Love. Madness. Hope. Infinite joy.
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If you’re happy in a dream, does that count?
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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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What came for them? Not death. Just the end of living.
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The world’s ‘freeest’ country has the highest number in prison.
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Terrorism is the symptom, not the disease.
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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