25 quotes found
“A White Tiger keeps no friends. It's too dangerous.”
“It's amazing. The moment you show cash, everyone knows your language.”
“We may not have sewage, drinking water, and Olympic gold medals, but we do have democracy.”
“Neither you nor I speak English, but there are some things that can be said only in English.”
“You ask 'Are you a man or a demon?' Neither, I say. I have woken up, and the rest of you are sleeping, and that is the only difference between us.”
“Being called a murderer: fine, I have no objection to that. It's a fact: I am a sinner, a fallen human. But to be called a murderer by the police!”
“See, the poor dream all their lives of getting enough to eat and looking like the rich. And what do the rich dream of?? Losing weight and looking like the poor.”
“There is no end in India, Mr. Jiabao,as Mr. Ashok so correctly used to say. You'll have to keep paying and paying the fuckers. But I complain about the police the way the rich complain; not the way...”
“Now there are some, and I don't just mean Communists like you, but thinking men of all political parties, who think that not many of these gods actually exist. Some believe that none of them exist....”
“Do you know about Hanuman, sir? He was the faithful servant of the god Rama, and we worship him in our temples because he is a shining example of how to serve your masters with absolute fidelity, l...”
“The two of them kept an eye open for every tree or temple we passed by, and turned to me for a reaction of piety which I gave them, of course, and with growing elaborateness: first just touching my...”
“The worst part of being a driver is that you have hours to yourself while waiting for your employer. You can spend this time chitchatting and scratching your groin. You can read murder and rape mag...”
“But isn't it likely that everyone in this world...has killed someone or other on their way to the top?...All I wanted was a chance to be a man--and for that, one murder is enough.”
“Me, and thousands of others in this country like me, are half-baked, because we were never allowed to complete our schooling. Open our skulls, look in with a penlight, and you'll find an odd museum...”
“He shook his head, but I kept flattering him, telling him how fine his beard was, how fair his skin was (ha!), how it was obvious from his nose and forehead that he wasn't some pig herd who had con...”
“Apparently, sir you Chinese are far ahead of us in every respect, except that you dont have entrepreneurs. And our nation, though it has no drinking water, electricity, sewage system, public transp...”
“People in this country are still waiting for the war of their freedom to come from somewhere else, from the jungles, from the mountains, from China, from Pakistan. That will never happen. Every man...”
“The Rooster Coop was doing its work. Servants have to keep other servants from becoming innovators, experimenters or entrepreneurs. The coop is guarded from the inside.”
“If I were making a country, I'd get the sewage pipes first, then the democracy, then I'd go about giving pamphlets and statues of Gandhi to other people, but what do I know? I'm just a murderer!”
“Here's a strange fact: murder a man, and you feel responsible for his life - possessive, even. You know more about him than his father and mother; they knew his fetus, but you know his corpse. Only...”
“Have you ever noticed that all four of the greatest poets in the world are Muslim? And yet all the Muslims you meet are illiterate or covered head to toe in black burkas or looking for buildings to...”
