Indian Author Quotes

Arundhati Roy

Premchand

Amitav Ghosh

Valmiki

Tulsidas

Sarojini Naidu

Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay

Marble flooring is to a Punjabi what a foreign degree is to a Tamilian

Ask him why there are hypocrites in the world.' 'Because it is hard to bear the happiness of others.' 'When are we happy?' 'When we desire nothing and realize that possession is only momentary, and so are forever playing.' 'What is regret?' 'To realize that one has spent one's life worrying about the future.' 'What is sorrow?' 'To long for the past.' 'What is the highest pleasure?' 'To hear a good story.

Vikram Chandra (novelist)

The Devil is a Five-headed
Snake, says the father.
The son says, Nay, it's a Six-headed one. And then their hearts burn
with hate for each others —
and they live apart for many years.

Subramanya Bharathi

Mao said he was prepared to have millions of Chinese people perish in a nuclear war as long as China survived... I'm beginning to find it more and more sick that only humans make it into our calculations... Annihilate life on earth, but save the nation... what's the subject heading? Stupidity or Insanity?

There was no aphrodisiac more powerful than talking, no seduction more effective than curiosity.

Amidst all your cries and laughter let your mind take a moment off, and go still. Look at this moment, this moment alone, and go still.

Swami Veda Bharati

The gay rights movement is not a party. It is not a lifestyle. It is not a hair style. It is not a fad or a fringe or a sickness. It is not about sin or salvation. The gay rights movement is an integral part of the American promise of freedom.

Her hands were empty now, as empty as her heart, which itself was a coconut shell with its meat scooped out.

How do you lose a word? Does it vanish into your memory, like an old toy in a cupboard, and lie hidden in the cobwebs and dust, waiting to be cleaned out or rediscovered?

Fear is not an emotion, it is a disease. It spreads from the leader to his followers and vice-versa. Nothing has killed more men in war than fear. What should a warrior fear? Death? But death is what everyone achieves ultimately. Is it wounds that you fear? What is more important? A pint of your blood or the nectar of victory? Think. Thinking will clear such doubts.

Anand Neelakantan

My view point is essentially that of questioning layman, who enquires in order to find out the why and whither of human conduct and the achievements of history as well as the prospects of civilization.

Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar

Wealth, women and wine can make anything happen in this world!

Ravinder Singh (author)

My father once remarked that the only way to write was the 'Franz Kafka' way where thoughts turn into pus-wielding wounds and when you let that wound out, it twists and turns into a story which people consume.

Shomprakash Sinha Roy

Let us praise the tender feet
worshipped by the gods,
the feet of our Lord.

This is the land of religion, Be it be for good or for evil, we cannot do without religion. Religious thoughts are in our blood. If we try to flee from it, it will pursue us.

Mahadev Govind Ranade

Worry is like a rocking chair; it keeps you in motion but gets you nowhere

Things can never be as they were. It's astonishing how we comment on change, as if change is something remarkable. On the contrary, not to change is unnatural, against nature.

Shashi Deshpande

You may lose something, but you gain a double perspective, a double vision. Especially in terms of writing, or in terms of art, I think it's tremendously useful.

What is known is a handful; the unknown is as vast as the universe.

We're all surrounded by words like air, and we all need them even though they are often invisible, just like air.

The Hindu mind works in such a way that continuity of worship is more important than physical fact. When the Harappans migrated eastward towards the Gangetic region, they carried with them their memories of the Sarasvati. The myths and sanctity were transferred to Prayag.

What was the right level of prosperity, the level that banished dire need but did not satiate, the level that did not threaten the artist in the individual? And how did one stop when one arrived at it?

Nayantara Sahgal

Nothing. She is innocent and blameless. She has lived as Rama's queen ten thousand years; before that Rama saved her from great danger by wondrous and incredible deeds. And now behold one of the terrors of kingship, that Rama let her go because his people talk against her. Get up, save her life with you and your companions; and make in measured words the song of Rama, and teach it to Rama's two sons.

Slowly, painstakingly, like ants, men would make their paths and civilization and their wars once again, only to have it wash away again.

Isn't it strange how life won't flow, like a river, but moves in jumps, as if it were held back by locks that are opened now and then to let it jump forwards in a kind of flood?