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.
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
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.
Arundhati RoyRead
Similar quotes
So, two cheers for Democracy: one because it admits variety and two because it permits criticism.
E. M. ForsterRead
Many Christians and Christian leaders have been neutralized by the love of money and materialism. The homage paid to affluence becomes a burden that saps our energy as well as our love for God and other people...Like Jesus and Paul, we can learn to be content with what we have, living modestly in order that we may give liberally to the work of the kingdom and to meet the needs of others.
John WimberRead
Anyone who believes you can't change history has never tried to write his memoirs.
David Ben-GurionRead
And although it might be best of all to be Socrates satisfied, having both happiness and depth, we would give up some happiness in order to gain the depth.
Robert NozickRead
To regret one’s own experiences is to arrest one’s own development. To deny one’s own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of one’s own life. It is no less than a denial of the soul.
Oscar WildeRead
Winds flap the sail, tortoise and snake are silent, a great plan looms. A bridge will fly over this moat dug by heaven and be a road from north to south. We will make a stone wall against the upper river to the west and hold back steamy clouds and rain of Wu peaks. Over tall chasms will be a calm lake, and if the goddess of these mountains is not dead she will marvel at the changed world.
Mao ZedongRead