Arundhati Roy Quotes

Polygamy: An endeavour to get more out of life than there is in it.

It sounds not only disagreeable but also paradoxical, yet it must nevertheless be said that anyone who is to be really free and happy in love must have surmounted his respect for women and have come to terms with the idea of incest with his mother or sister.

All forms of sexual loving become acceptable if the lovers wear togas or wolfskins.

The innkeeper loves the drunkard, but not for a son-in-law.

No one today knows what is indecent

As the mores and laws of the South made such liaisons illegitimate by law and nonexistent in speech, race mixing became an erasable element of one’s past. Sexual intimacy between blacks and whites was not a subversive act provided it was not formally acknowledged.

Every family is a crazy family.

I'm kind of proud of being a love child.

We were all such odd characters, even though we were a really functional family, in a way, as eccentric and crazy as we were. And it was such a wonderful feeling amongst us of being a family almost. We were 'The Addams Family!'

My heroes in real life are definitely my mom for being true to herself, for having a foot in both worlds, for being so very polite - Canadian and also such a traditional Greek woman. I would sum it up this way: the life lesson she would say is be polite while you're breaking the rules.

Mum wasn't scared of dad but I'm sure she got fed up with him taking her for granted... When I look back it was an empty relationship but I doubt there was ever a question of them splitting up. It wasn't the done thing.

My dad is this typical orthodox, narrow-minded Punjabi man in front of whom you can't even utter the word called 'boyfriend.'

I do like crossing moral boundaries.

I come from a huge family and out of all 34 of my immediate family members, my heavier influences were women. Between my grandmothers, aunts, older female cousins, and of course my mother, I was pretty much predominantly raised by women, as they make up most of my family anyway.

I have no problems with buying tampons. I am a fairly modern man. But apparently they're not a "proper" present. "Happy birthday, mum!"

I think the ideal situation for a family is to be completely incestuous.

Man is potentially a son, and woman is potentially a mother; woman depends on the dependence of man. The spinster, if pathetic at all, is pathetic because she has no one to look after, not because there is no one to look after her. Bear in mind that the conventional spinster keeps a canaary as a substitute for a husband.

I have a cousin, a second cousin, who lives in L.A., and she was with me while I was getting ready. She was talking about her father and his brothers. And I remember my mother's tales of how competitive they were with each other and how they would play for blood, you know. And I thought - I'm an only child, and I don't know what that's like. I have to figure out the Southern thing.

A woman without a man -- a condition of 'manlessness' -- is defined as alone. But a single mother is less alone than the average housewife.

I learn about the highs and lows of living with the same mother for your entire life, about how no one can make you angrier, but how you can't really love anyone more.

For a moment, I was captivated as I studied them side by side. My mother: the perfect picture of guardian excellence and decorum. My father: always capable of achieving his goals, no matter how twisted the means. Uneasily, I began to understand how I’d inherited my bizarre personality.

Adorable children are considered to be the general property of the human race. Rude children belong to their mothers.

What woman wants to go home with a guy that lives with his mother?

She was my mother. I couldn't threaten to slap, stab, beat or even name call her. I tried to think of something to scare her into never mentioning the predicament with the Dreamsnatcher again. I'll become a swinger," I said. her eyes bugged. Uptight rearing made her uncomfortable with alternate lifestyles. "That's right. threesomes, foursomes, and more. bones knows about a thousand chicks who'd love to hop into bed with us. It'll be kinky, we'll get out freak on.-

The awe and dread with which the untutored savage contemplates his mother-in-law are amongst the most familiar facts of anthropology.