Quotes by Katherine Boo

“Much of what was said did not matter, and that much of what mattered could not be said.”

“She was simply Asha, a woman on her own. Had the situation been otherwise, she might not have come to know her own brain.”

“One of his private vanities was that all the garbage sorting had endowed his hands with killing strengththat he could chop a brick in half like Bruce Lee. So lets get a brick, replied a girl with w...”

“Zehrunisa didnt know Abduls age herself. Seventeen was what shed said before the burning, when people asked her, but he could have been twenty-seven, for all she knew. You didnt keep track of a chi...”

“I've said it before and I'll say it again: Never trust anyone who tells you how people come to trust him.”

“But something he'd come to realize on the roof, leaning out, thinking about what would happen if he leaned too far, was that a boy's life could still matter to himself.”

“Rich Indians typically tried to work around a dysfunctional government. Private security was hired, city water was filtered, private school tuitions were paid. Such choices had evolved over the yea...”

“I tell Allah I love Him immensely, immensely. But I tell Him I cannot be better, because of how the world is.”

“.. becoming attached to a country involves pressing, uncomfortable questions about justice and opportunity for its least powerful citizens.”

“In places where government priorities and market imperatives create a world so capricious that to help a neighbor is to risk your ability to feed your family, and sometimes even your own liberty, t...”

“As every slumdweller knew, there were three main ways out of poverty: finding an entrepreneurial niche, as the Husains had found in garbage; politics and corruption, in which Asha placed her hopes;...”

“The municipality sent water through six Annawadi faucets for ninety minutes in the morning and ninety minutes at night. Shiv Sena men had appropriated the taps, charging usage fees to their neighbo...”

“The forces of justice had finally come to Annawadi. That the beneficiaries were horses was a source of bemusement to Sunil and the road boys.”

“Water and ice made of the same thing. He thought most people were made of the same thing, too...If he had sort all the humanity by its material essence, he thought he would probably end up with a s...”

“The Indian criminal justice system was a market like garbage, Abdul now understood. Innocence and guilt could be bought and sold like a kilo of polyurethane bags.”

“He wanted to go home to the place that he hated.”

“In the age of global market capitalism, hopes and grievances were narrowly conceived, which blunted a sense of common predicament. Poor people didnt unite; they competed ferociously amongst themsel...”

“Like most young Annawadians, the girls considered the caste obsession of their elders to be an irrelevant artifact. Manju and Meena had become friends because they both loved to dance, and stayed f...”

“A few weeks ago, Abdul had seen a boys hand cut clean off when he was putting plastic into one of the shredders. The boys eyes had filled with tears but he hadnt screamed. Instead hed stood there w...”

“Though Abdul had been as afraid of ghosts as most Annawadi boys, these reports did not disturb him. Being terrorized by living people seemed to have diminished his fear of the dead.”