To me, there is nothing higher than fiction. Nothing. It is fundamentally who I am. I am a teller of stories. For me, that's the only way I can make sense of the world, with all the dance that it involves.
Arundhati RoyRead
If you ask me what is at the core of what I write, it isn't about 'rights', it's about justice. Justice is a grand, beautiful, revolutionary idea.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The essence of writing is centered on justice rather than mere rights, highlighting justice as a transformative concept.
Arundhati Roy emphasizes that her writing is fundamentally driven by the pursuit of justice, rather than simply advocating for individual rights. She describes justice as a profound and beautiful idea that has the power to create revolutionary change, suggesting that it goes beyond legal entitlements and delves into the moral and ethical dimensions of society.
Themes
JusticeWritingRightsRevolutionChange
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech advocating for social reforms, one might say, 'As Arundhati Roy put it, my writing focuses not on rights but on the broader theme of justice.'
More from Arundhati Roy
All quotes βWhen she listened to songs that she loved on the radio, something stirred inside her. A liquid ache spread under her skin, and she walked out of the world like a witch.
Arundhati RoyRead
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.
Arundhati RoyRead
When I decided to write 'The God of Small Things', I had been working in cinema. It was almost a decision to downshift from there. I thought that 300 people would read it. But it created a platform of trust.
Arundhati RoyRead
In California, there are huge problems because of dams. I'm against big dams, per se, because I think that they are economically unfeasible. They're ecologically unsustainable. And they're hugely undemocratic.
Arundhati RoyRead
To call someone 'anti-American', indeed, to be anti-American, is not just racist, it's a failure of the imagination.
Arundhati RoyRead
Similar quotes
Our capital system is haunted by the demon of error: error in determining guilt and error in determining who among the guilty deserves to die. What effect was race having? What effect was poverty having?
George RyanRead
Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter. I won't have any money to leave behind. I won't have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind. And that's all I want to say.
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Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion.
Thomas JeffersonRead
So much of America's tragic and costly failure to care for all its children stems from our tendency to distinguish between our own children and other people's children--as if justice were divisible.
Marian Wright EdelmanRead
An act of justice closes the book on a misdeed; an act of vengeance writes one of its own
Marilyn Vos SavantRead
People are tried and convicted in the newspapers and on television before they ever see a courtroom.
Assata ShakurRead