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
It is true that success is the most boring thing, it is tinny and brittle, failure runs deeper. Success is dangerous. I have a very complicated relationship with that word.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Success can be superficial and fragile, while failure has more depth and can be more instructive.
In this quote, Arundhati Roy reflects on the complexities of success compared to failure. She suggests that while success might appear enticing and impressive, it is often fragile and can lack substance. In contrast, failure is portrayed as a more profound experience that can offer valuable lessons and personal growth, highlighting the dangers associated with solely pursuing success without recognizing the importance of failure in the journey of life.
Themes
SuccessFailureDepthDangerousRelationship
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about resilience and learning from mistakes.
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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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