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
Insanity hovered close at hand, like an eager waiter at an expensive restaurant.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that insanity is a constant presence, always waiting to influence us during challenging times.
Arundhati Roy's quote metaphorically describes insanity as an ever-present, almost inviting force, akin to a waiter hovering at a high-end restaurant ready to serve. This imagery conveys the idea that in moments of stress or complexity, the potential for losing one's sanity is nearby, tempting individuals to give in to chaos rather than maintain composure.
Themes
InsanityPresenceTemptationChaosStress
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech about mental health, one could use this quote to illustrate the constant battle against insanity in stressful environments.
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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No, I donβt wish I knew Heaven was like the picture in my Great Divorce, because, if we knew that, we should know it was no better. The good things even of this world are far too good ever to be reached by imagination. Even the common orange, you know: no one could have imagined it before he tasted it. How much less Heaven.
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Liberty has never come from Government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it.
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Government is as unreal, as intangible, as unapproachable as God. Try it, if you don't believe it. Seek through the legislative halls of America and find, if you can, the Government. In the end you will be doomed to confer with the agent, as before.
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[Religion is] the attempt to be in harmony with an unseen order of things.
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Jesus didn't come to tell us the answers to the questions of life, he came to be the answer.
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But whether I become a believer or remain an agnostic, my belief or disbelief must derive its source from within, not from without. I, myself, must create its symbols. The transcendental is that which produces its own form. I will never discover its secret if I do not find it in my own heart; if I do not possess it already I shall never be able to acquire it.
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