William Dalrymple Quotes

10 Sourced Quotes

India has always had a strange way with her conquerors. In defeat, she beckons them in, then slowly seduces, assimilates and transforms them.

William Dalrymple
In the course of my travels I often came across the assumption that intense spirituality was somehow the preserve of what many call 'the mystic east'... it's a misconception that has always irritated me as I've always regarded our own indigenous British traditions of spirituality as especially rich.

William Dalrymple
What has gone on in Iraq and Afghanistan has many echoes with what was going in this part of the world in 18th and 19th century - setting up of puppet governments, the lending of troops and the training of local troops in recent Western techniques. Anyone that knows the history of South Asia in 18th century can see million echoes in what has been going in Iraq and Afghanistan.

William Dalrymple
Partition was a total catastrophe for Delhi,' she said. 'Those who were left behind are in misery. Those who were uprooted are in misery. The Peace of Delhi is gone. Now it is all gone.

William Dalrymple
Mr. William, he said, in my life six times have I crashed, and on not one occasion have I ever been killed.

William Dalrymple
I am a terrible linguist. It s a great shame that I have not learnt Urdu and Persian.

William Dalrymple
I am writing definitely primarily for an audience who don't know India.

William Dalrymple
I am basically writing for a general audience rather than an academic audience. So, I explain stuff, I don't assume knowledge of any of this on the part of the reader. In a kind of general sense I suppose I have, when I am deciding how much needs to be explained, in mind my primary audience.

William Dalrymple
Everybody has their own India and I think it's a nonsense construction, a real India. The real India might be the India of the villages and certainly there's a lot to be said of the fact that India's heart lies in its villages. But I live 5 miles down the road from Gurgaon with skyscrapers and software companies and back-office projects and call-centers. And that's a very real India too, so I think real India doesn't make much sense— anymore than the real US with apple pie and Thanksgiving and family around campfires; is that anymore real than Manhattan?

William Dalrymple
The current Western puppet Hamid Karzai is from the same sub-tribe as Shah Shuja, who was a British puppet in 1839, It is the same war under slightly different flags.

William Dalrymple