“Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words.”

For all their restlessness, men are who they are; once they put on the man’s toga they will not change again; so they make a virtue of that rigidity and resist whatever might soften it and set them free.

A writer is a person who cares what words mean, what they say, how they say it… By using words well they strengthen their souls.

To claim power over what you do not understand is not wise, nor is the end of it likely to be good.

I had forgotten how much light there is in the world, till you gave it back to me.

And, as you read and re-read, the book of course participates in the creation of you, your thoughts and feelings, the size and temper of your soul.

What good is music? None … and that is the point. To the world and its states and armies and factories and Leaders, music says, ‘You are irrelevant’; and, arrogant and gentle as a god, to the suffering man it says only, ‘

We need to be taught these skills; we need guides to show us how. If we don’t, our lives get made up for us by other people .

While we read a novel, we are insane-bonkers. We believe in the existence of people who aren’t there, we hear their voices… Sanity returns (in most cases) when the book is closed.

Either we will establish an ecological society or society will go under for everyone, irrespective of his or her status.

What is an anarchist? One who, choosing, accepts the responsibility of choice.

A writer is a person who cares what words mean, what they say, how they say it.

The light is the left hand of darkness.

The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story.

First sentences are doors to worlds.

No darkness lasts forever. And even there, there are stars.

If you evade suffering you also evade the chance of joy. Pleasure you may get, or pleasures, but you will not be fulfilled. You will not know what it is to come home.

Although human beings are incapable of talking about themselves with total honesty, it is much harder to avoid the truth while pretending to be other people.

Human beings share the same common problems. A film can only be understood if it depicts these properly.

I think my being such a nomad let me into acting. I was always having to create a new image whenever we moved.

Human beings are unable to be honest with themselves about themselves. They cannot talk about themselves without embellishing.

I have always been a softie, and I fight it with every fiber of my being. Sadly, my being’s fibers need to hit the gym.

We are all human beings, immigrant or non-immigrant. We all feel fear.

As a human being living one’s life, one is more open to relief when there is rain or the expectation of rain. That readiness for hope gets manifested in my stories and that of many other Indian writers.

Love, being in love, isn’t a constant thing. It doesn’t always flow at the same strength. It’s not always like a river in flood. It’s more like the sea. It has tides, it ebbs and flows.