Kiran Desai Quotes

Quotes about:

• Writing, for me, means humility. It’s a process that involves fear and doubt, especially if you’re writing honestly.

  Kiran Desai

  Honesty, Fear, Writing

  62 Copy quote

• The present changes the past. Looking back you do not find what you left behind.

  Kiran Desai

  Change, Past, Left Behind

  Kiran Desai (2006). “The Inheritance of Loss”, p.208, Atlantic Monthly Press

  49 Copy quote

• A journey once begun, has no end

  Kiran Desai

  Journey, Ends

  Kiran Desai (2007). “The Inheritance of Loss”, p.122, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• Could fulfillment ever be felt as deeply as loss?

  Kiran Desai

  Loss, Fulfillment, Felt

  Kiran Desai (2007). “The Inheritance of Loss”, p.3, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• I don't think you can write according to a set of rules and laws; every writer is so different.

  Kiran Desai

  Writing, Thinking, Law

  "The Writer's Block Myth: A Guide To Get Past Stuck & Experience Lasting Creative Freedom". Book by Heloise Jones, 2017.

  22 Copy quote

• Could fulfillment ever be felt as deeply as loss? Romantically she decided that love must surely reside in the gap between desire and fulfillment, in the lack, not the contentment. Love was the ache, the anticipation, the retreat, everything around it but the emotion itself.

  Kiran Desai

  Loss, Contentment, Desire

  FaceBook post by Kiran Desai from Jan 13, 2013

  23 Copy quote

• Sadness was so claustrophobic.

  Kiran Desai

  Sadness

  Kiran Desai (2006). “Inheritance of Loss”, p.309, Penguin Books India

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• I do think that the modern India does belong to writers who are living in India.

  Kiran Desai

  Thinking, Modern India, Doe

  "Kiran Desai Talk Asia interview". Interview with Anjali Rao, edition.cnn.com. April 24, 2007.

  27 Copy quote

• When you write on your own, you can write the extremes. No one else is watching and you can really go as far as you need to.

  Kiran Desai

  Writing, Needs, Extremes

  "A passage from India", www.theguardian.com. October 12, 2006.

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• This way of leaving your family for work had condemned them over several generations to have their hearts always in other places, their minds thinking about people elsewhere; they could never be in a single existence at one time. How wonderful it was going to be to have things otherwise.

  Kiran Desai

  Heart, Thinking, People

  FaceBook post by Kiran Desai from Feb 12, 2012

  23 Copy quote

• I feel as comfortable anywhere as I feel uncomfortable anywhere.

  Kiran Desai

  Uncomfortable, Feels, Comfortable

  "A passage from India". Interview with Laura Barton, www.theguardian.com. October 12, 2006.

  8 Copy quote

• No fruit dies so vile and offensive a death as the banana.

  Kiran Desai

  Fruit, Bananas, Offensive

  Kiran Desai (2007). “The Inheritance of Loss”, p.43, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  14 Copy quote

• You lived intensely with others, only to have them disappear overnight, since the shadow class was condemned to movement. The men left for other jobs, towns, got deported, returned home, changed names. Sometimes someone came popping around a corner again, or on the subway then they vanished again. Addresses, phone numbers did not hold. The emptiness Biju felt returned to him over and over, until eventually he made sure not to let friendships sink deep anymore.

  Kiran Desai

  Jobs, Home, Men

  Kiran Desai (2007). “The Inheritance of Loss”, p.112, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  17 Copy quote

• She'd have to propel herself into the future by whatever means possible or she'd be trapped forever in a place whose times had already passed.

  Kiran Desai

  Travel, Mean, Forever

  Kiran Desai (2007). “The Inheritance of Loss”, p.82, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• Slowly, painstakingly, like ants, men would make their paths and civilization and their wars once again, only to have it wash away again.

  Kiran Desai

  War, Men, Civilization

  Kiran Desai (2006). “Inheritance of Loss”, p.323, Penguin Books India

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• If you write a lovely story about India, you're criticized for selling an exotic version of India. And if you write critically about India, you're seen as portraying it in a negative light - it also seems to be a popular way to present India, sort of mangoes and beggars.

  Kiran Desai

  Writing, Light, Lovely

  "Kiran Desai Talk Asia interview". Interview With Anjali Rao, www.cnn.com. April 24, 2007.

  5 Copy quote

• The Indian diaspora is a wonderful place to write from and I am lucky to be part of it.

  Kiran Desai

  Writing, Diaspora, Lucky

  "The publishing world is pretty heinous: Kiran Desai". Interview with Nabanita Sircar, www.indiatoday.in. October 30, 2006.

  23 Copy quote

• We think of immigration as a Western issue but, of course, it isn't.

  Kiran Desai

  Thinking, Issues, Immigration

  "Talk Asia" with Anjali Rao, edition.cnn.com. April 24, 2007.

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• Jemu watched his father disappear. He didn't throw the coconut and he didn't cry. Never again would he know love for another human being that wasn't adulterated by another, contradictory emotion.

  Kiran Desai

  Father, Coconuts, Emotion

  Kiran Desai (2007). “The Inheritance of Loss”, p.42, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• I love Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, Flannery O'Connor. I read a lot of American writers.

  Kiran Desai

  Tennessee, Truman, American Writer

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• When he died, I went about like a ragged crow telling strangers, "My father died, my father died." My indiscretion embarrassed me, but I could not help it. Without my father on his Delhi rooftop, why was I here? Without him there, why should I go back? Without that ache between us, what was I made of?

  Kiran Desai

  Father, Crow, Rooftops

  FaceBook post by Kiran Desai from Jun 16, 2014

  8 Copy quote

• Why couldn't she be part of that family? rent a room in someone else's life.

  Kiran Desai

  Rooms

  Kiran Desai (2007). “The Inheritance of Loss”, p.233, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• In India, if you are from the elite, dogs are extremely important. The breed of the dog indicates your wealth, that you are westernized. The cook, another human being, is on a much lower level than your dog. You see this all the time.

  Kiran Desai

  Dog, Important, India

  "Kiran Desai on the Costs Of Literary Celebrity". Interview with Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg, www.wsj.com. April 21, 2007.

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• A man wasn't equal to an animal, not one particle of him. Human life was stinking corrupt, and meanwhile there were beautiful creatures who lived with delicacy on the earth without doing anyone harm. "We should be dying." the judge almost wept.

  Kiran Desai

  Beautiful, Men, Animal

  FaceBook post by Kiran Desai from Dec 04, 2011

  7 Copy quote

• I'm always in the kitchen, cooking and experimenting - I love it. And every now and then I think, 'I should write a cookbook' or, 'I should write for food magazines.' And then I get drawn back to writing fiction again.

  Kiran Desai

  Writing, Thinking, Cooking

  5 Copy quote

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