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
To call someone 'anti-American', indeed, to be anti-American, is not just racist, it's a failure of the imagination.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Labeling someone as 'anti-American' reflects a limited perspective and ignorance of diverse views.
In this quote, Arundhati Roy criticizes the term 'anti-American' as not only a harmful stereotype but also as a sign of an inability to understand differing perspectives and critiques. Rather than engaging with complex debates about nationalism and identity, resorting to such labels reveals a deeper societal issue of intolerance and a failure to imagine a more inclusive dialogue.
Themes
Anti-AmericanRacismImaginationDiversityPerspective
In practice
Example use cases
During a discussion on nationalism and identity, one might reference this quote to highlight the dangers of simplistic labels.
More from Arundhati Roy
All quotes →When 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.
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The trouble is that once you see it, you can't unsee it. And once you've seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing, becomes as political an act as speaking out. There's no innocence. Either way, you're accountable.
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