Vikas Swarup Quotes

The people of Butler Island spoke to me and demanded I bear witness for them.

My nature is that when I see abuses of power, I want to expose those abuses.

Clever tyrants are never punished.

For as long as I can remember, I've always been interested in issues of social justice, political freedom, and civil rights.

If a policy is wrongheaded, feckless and corrupt, I take it personally and consider it a moral obligation to sound off and not shut up until it's fixed.

Integrity is the lifeblood of democracy. Deceit is a poison in its veins.

If you can find the courage, if you have in your heart even the slightest bit of rebellion against injustice, maybe you can channel that and become a leader.

The duty of youth is to challenge corruption.

Everything sells. Like integrity. Like democracy. Like truth. Like deeds.

The difference between a democracy and other forms of government is not that in a democracy bad things do not happen. The difference is that in a democracy something will be done about it and someone will be held to account.

The best way to kill anything un-American is to drag it out into the open; because anything un-American cannot live in the sunlight.

Democracy is political corruption which must be effectively done away with.

No matter how mendacious elites may be, they cannot extinguish the forces for good in the world.

Governments pale in the face of truth. It’s the one thing they fear most.

Better that right counsels be known to enemies than that the evil secrets of tyrants should be concealed from the citizens.

Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

Some people will have to be afraid. Those who plunder the nation, deliver injustice, will have to feel scared of me. And I am not afraid of admitting this. Government cannot be so lenient that it forgives them.

When you see corruption, when you see injustice, you speak up. You don't just shut up and say it's none of my business.

We will change things if people stand up for what they believe in against injustice and death to save themselves and the future of America - and the world.

As I grew older and got into the late teens and early 20s, I wanted to be a voice of the people. You know, getting locked up all the time and going through so much oppression and seeing it all around myself, I wanted to be a voice for it.

I know we have to have people of good conscience who stand up against oppression. I know we have to have people who understand that social justice belongs to us all. And that wakes me up every morning, and that makes me fight even harder.

It's always important, when we experience injustice in this nation, that people in power understand that we will not take that injustice quietly.

Pity the nation that has to silence its writers for speaking their minds. Pity the nation that needs to jail those who ask for justice, while communal killers, mass murderers, corporate scamsters, looters, rapists, and those who prey on the poorest of the poor, roam free.

Believe in the power of your own voice. The more noise you make, the more accountability you demand from your leaders, the more our world will change for the better.

It was simply this: silence is not a neutral position, whatever your intentions. Silence automatically supports the status quo. When you are a presence that lacks a voice, you create an empty space that another voice - a dominating voice that knows no boundaries - is only too happy to fill.