Aravind Adiga Quotes

I am from a very vague caste. I don't belong to any of the four. I am kayastha. They are well read, largely clerks so they get treated respectfully.

I was an Indian with zero sense of caste till I was 20. That's an unusual privilege but it came out of the fact that I was a middle-class Bengali.

There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia.

What family you were born into matters so much more than it did before in a perverse way.

I don't come from a privileged background.

There are people who are surprised at my politics and being a conservative and the rest of it. But the truth of the matter is, to my knowledge, I have never been overlooked or turned down for anything that I wanted to do that was being offered to me.

I'm used to always being different, in any context. People always want to know how I grew up, so I just say I grew up Muslim. That's the truth. Two Muslim girls can write me two extremely different letters - and they do. Some are very supportive, and some question what I do.

Class is real. It can't be faked.

I'm aware that not all kids can pick up and fly to Panama. I'm very lucky.

Well, you know, Thomas Jefferson, who was the author of the Declaration of Independence said he wouldn't have any atheists in his cabinet because atheists wouldn't swear an oath to God. That was Jefferson and we have never had any Muslims in the cabinet.

I'm just a regular upper-middle-class guy who happens to be a billionaire.

I'm ashamed to say that I'm from a very privileged background.

Class - or the economic status of individuals - is evident in all societies, some very well stratified by a rigid caste system determined by birth.

As an East Asian looking at America, I find attractive and unattractive features. I like, for example, the free, easy and open relations between people regardless of social status, ethnicity or religion.

I was poor white trash, no glitter, no glamour, but I'm not ashamed of anything.

There's often an assumption you're more privileged if you belong to a family with people who have made a success.

Class is something I know about. I've lived it every day of my life, and it shaped me in my identity.

Being a monarchist, and fawning over those 'above' you, you must naturally despise those 'below' or on the same socioeconomic level as yourself, because that is how hierarchy worship works.

The fact that I am not Jewish by religion does not prevent me from connecting to the Jewish nation's spirituality.

Who is more in touch with the problems of this country? One of those guys who goes off to Oxford or to University of Yale, or someone who has lived in buses, in the Metro, in the street?

My early childhood prepared me to be a social psychologist. I grew up in a South Bronx ghetto in a very poor family. From Sicilian origin, I was the first person in my family to complete high school, let alone go to college.

My father is an atheist. My mother is Buddhist. They encouraged my siblings and me to take the best part of other religions to make our own belief system.

Hinduism has created untouchability within its caste structure. How can it talk about secularism in terms of religious equality?

Better educated than wealthy

I once more want to impress upon all Muslims that they should fully co-operate with the Government and the officials in protecting their Hindu neighbor.