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.
Arundhati RoyRead
To call someone 'anti-American', indeed, to be anti-American, is not just racist, it's a failure of the imagination.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Labeling someone as 'anti-American' reflects a limited perspective and ignorance of diverse views.
In this quote, Arundhati Roy criticizes the term 'anti-American' as not only a harmful stereotype but also as a sign of an inability to understand differing perspectives and critiques. Rather than engaging with complex debates about nationalism and identity, resorting to such labels reveals a deeper societal issue of intolerance and a failure to imagine a more inclusive dialogue.
Themes
Anti-AmericanRacismImaginationDiversityPerspective
In practice
Example use cases
During a discussion on nationalism and identity, one might reference this quote to highlight the dangers of simplistic labels.
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.
Arundhati RoyRead
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.
Arundhati RoyRead
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.
Arundhati RoyRead
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.
Arundhati RoyRead
The trouble is that once you see it, you can't unsee it. And once you've seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing, becomes as political an act as speaking out. There's no innocence. Either way, you're accountable.
Arundhati RoyRead
Similar quotes
The life most of us live are lives we are forced to live by immediate needs, influences, and pressures.
Walter MosleyRead
We can no more justify using nonhumans as human resources than we can justify human slavery. Animal use and slavery have at least one important point in common: both institutions treat sentient beings exclusively as resources of others. That cannot be justified with respect to humans; it cannot be justified with respect to nonhumans—however “humanely” we treat them.
Gary L. FrancioneRead
We adore chaos because we love to produce order.
M. C. EscherRead
We need to have empathy. When we lose empathy, we lose our humanity.
Goldie HawnRead
Without opium, plans, marriages and journeys appear to me just as foolish as if someone falling out of a window were to hope to make friends with the occupants of the room before which he passes.
Jean CocteauRead
Thy soul shall find itself alone ’Mid dark thoughts of the gray tombstone— Not one, of all the crowd, to pry Into thine hour of secrecy. Be silent in that solitude, Which is not loneliness—for then The spirits of the dead who stood In life before thee are again In death around thee—and their will Shall overshadow thee: be still. [...]
Edgar Allan PoeRead