Arundhati Roy Quotes

The combined Gross Domestic Product of forty-eight countries is less than the wealth of the three richest people in the world. Fifteen billionaires have assets greater than the total national income of Africa, south of the Sahara. Thirty-two people own more than the annual income of everyone who lives in South Asia.

We have got some mountains to move. Three billion people - half of God's children - are living on less than $2 a day.

I like globalization; I want to say it works, but it is hard to say that when six hundred million people are slipping backwards.

This country is very good at creating wealth, but not very good at distributing it.

I was deeply concerned then, and have become more concerned since, that unless we can deal with the questions of development and the questions of poverty, there's no way that we're going to have a peaceful world for our children.

Never forget that there are rich people in poor countries and poor people in rich countries.

All over the globe the U.S. is fighting to protect and develop at least a minority who consume what the U.S. majority can afford.

The problems of the Third World—its poverty, its ignorance, its debt—never really seemed to affect Europeans and Americans. No longer. It's a little warmer than it used to be. The water is rising.

Today, half of the national income goes to the richest 10 percent. In 2007, the top 1 percent controlled 34.6 percent of the wealth—significantly more than the bottom 90 percent who control just 26.9 percent.

Wars are bred by poverty and oppression. Continued peace is possible only in a relatively free and prosperous world.

The burning issue of our time is the growing inequality in income and wealth in our country.

Why do some people have to go barefoot so that others can drive luxury cars? Why are some people able to live only 35 years in order that others can live 70 years? Why do some people have to be miserably poor in order that others can be extravagantly rich? I speak for all the children in the world who don't even have a piece of bread.

Poverty is curable, but it’s just not done, because it's not profitable. And that is the kind of violence that's perpetuated on humanity.

These days there is a lot of poverty in the world, and that's a scandal when we have so many riches and resources to give to everyone. We all have to think about how we can become a little poorer.

Poverty is not inevitable. It is a human ill that we can fight if we decide to do so together.

What I worry about is the lack of understanding in society around the world that there is a divide in the world between those who have and those who do not.

It's morally wrong, and economically self-defeating, that so much wealth flows upwards towards the richest of Americans, while millions work full time but still can't provide for their families.

I believe that the war against terrorism and the war against poverty in these times of turmoil go together. So you - when you fight one, you have to fight the other.

Today continuing poverty and distress are a deeper and more important cause of international tensions, of the conditions that can produce war, than previously.

Obama might as well be president of Turkey or Brazil; it does not matter. It's the system that is absolutely flawed, where 25 or 35 or 50 people make multi, multi-billions on building Olympic structures while people live in Barbados and have no roads or clean drinking water. There's something pretty inequitable there.

The 1 to 2 billion poorest in the world, who don't have food for the day, suffer from the worst disease: globalization deficiency. The way globalization is occurring could be much better, but the worst thing is not being part of it. For those people, we need to support good civil societies and governments.

The economy is not governed with the bottom half in mind.

Globalization, as defined by rich people like us, is a very nice thing... you are talking about the Internet, you are talking about cell phones, you are talking about computers. This doesn't affect two-thirds of the people of the world.

If you go back to 1800, everybody was poor. I mean everybody. The Industrial Revolution kicked in, and a lot of countries benefited, but by no means everyone.

I want to eradicate poverty. I think that there's a tremendous passion for that inside the World Bank.