“All my books are accidental books – they come from reacting to things and thinking about things and engaging in a real way. They are not about, ‘Oh, did it get a good review in the Guardian?’ I don’t care.”
“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”
“As a writer, I have to go to a different place now. As a person… I want to step off whatever this stage is that I have been given. The argument has been made, the battle remains to be fought – and that requires a different set of skills.”
“Caste is about dividing people up in ways that preclude every form of solidarity, because even in the lowest castes, there are divisions and sub-castes, and everyone’s co-opted into the business of this hierarchical, silo-ised society.”
“Democracy no longer means what it was meant to. It has been taken back into the workshop. Each of its institutions has been hollowed out, and it has been returned to us as a vehicle for the free market, of the corporations. For the corporations, by the corporations.”
“Do you think that the people of South Africa, or anywhere on the continent of Africa, or India, or Pakistan are longing to be kicked around all over again?”
“Everybody can’t have the life of a normal, average American person in India – they can’t. So, it’s about egalitarianism. It’s about sharing things more equally. It’s about access to natural resources.”
“Everyone thinks I live alone, but I don’t. My characters all live with me.”
“Fiction is too beautiful to be about just one thing. It should be about everything.”
“For many people, the family is portrayed as the settled place of reasonable safety, but as anyone who has read ‘The God of Small Things’ would know, for me it was a dangerous place. I felt humiliated in that space. I wanted to get away as soon as I could.”