Anita Desai Quotes

“The bougainvillea hung about it, purple and magenta, in livid balloons.”

“India is a curious place that still preserves the past, religions, and its history. No matter how modern India becomes, it is still very much an old country.”

“India had a very long independence movement. It started in 1886, [with] the first generation of Western-educated Indians. They were all liberals. They followed the Liberal Party in Britain, and they were very proud of their knowledge of parliamentary systems, parliamentary manners. They were big debaters. They [had], as it were, a long apprenticeship in training for being in power. Even when Gandhi made it a mass movement, the idea of elective representatives, elected working committees, elected leadership, all that stayed because basically Indians wanted to impress the British that they were going to be as good as the British were at running a parliamentary democracy. And that helped quite a lot.”

“Not only the footwear, wear also the courtesy, respect, and gratitude in your heart while stepping out of home.”

“Things we carry from home shows where we hail from ~ courtesy, respect, and gratitude”

“With your lunch box, do not forget to carry courtesy, respect, and gratitude from home!”

“Perhaps that's why they had been so happy to learn a new tongue in the first place : the self consciousness of it, the effort of it, the grammar of it, pulled you up; a new language provided distance and kept the heart intact.”

“Wherever you go becomes a part of you somehow.”

“When all hopes are lost then the desire to believe in God is our belief.”

“Human kind has always been in the shadows of each other since its persistence of social interventional among the large groups of human societies.”