To me, there is nothing higher than fiction. Nothing. It is fundamentally who I am. I am a teller of stories. For me, that's the only way I can make sense of the world, with all the dance that it involves.
The mullahs of the Islamic world and the mullahs of the Hindu world and the mullahs of the Christian world are all on the same side. And we are against them all.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests a unified opposition to religious authorities across different faiths, emphasizing the need for collective action against these figures.
Arundhati Roy's quote reflects the idea that religious leaders from various faiths, including Islam, Hinduism, and Christianity, often uphold similar oppressive ideologies and power structures. By stating 'we are against them all,' Roy calls for a collective resistance from those who may oppose the authoritarian influence of these mullahs, advocating for a broader discourse on freedom and liberation beyond specific religious or cultural boundaries.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech on social justice, one could cite this quote to highlight the need for solidarity against oppressive systems.
More from Arundhati Roy
All quotes →When she listened to songs that she loved on the radio, something stirred inside her. A liquid ache spread under her skin, and she walked out of the world like a witch.
Caste is about dividing people up in ways that preclude every form of solidarity, because even in the lowest castes, there are divisions and sub-castes, and everyone's co-opted into the business of this hierarchical, silo-ised society.
When I decided to write 'The God of Small Things', I had been working in cinema. It was almost a decision to downshift from there. I thought that 300 people would read it. But it created a platform of trust.
In California, there are huge problems because of dams. I'm against big dams, per se, because I think that they are economically unfeasible. They're ecologically unsustainable. And they're hugely undemocratic.
To call someone 'anti-American', indeed, to be anti-American, is not just racist, it's a failure of the imagination.
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Be conscious first of thyself within, then think and act. All living thought is a world in preparation; all real act is a thought manifested. The material world exists because an idea began to play in divine self–consciousness.
Above all, do not attempt to use science (I mean, the real sciences) as a defence against Christianity. They will positively encourage him to think about realities he can’t touch and see.
Female heterosexuality is not a biological drive or an individual women's erotic attraction or attachment to another human animal which happens to be male. Female heterosexuality is a set of social institutions and practices... Those definitions... are about the oppression and exploitation of women by men.
The first thing to recognize not just about Afghanistan but about any poor undeveloped country is that as big as it looks on the map, it's much bigger when you're there.
How horrible, fantastic, incredible, it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas-masks here because of a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing.