Quotes from Climbing the Stairs

Padma Venkatraman ·  256 pages

Rating: (2.7K votes)


“The library was my only blessing. Every time I climbed the stairs, my heart lifted. All day, I looked forward to the happy hours I spent in that beautiful room. My guilt over appa's fate was too heavy to carry up there, and I learned to leave it below, somewhere on the ground floor. I left the house far behind as I walked on the path paved by the books, and every evening, baby Mangalam slept soundly on the bed I made for her on the window seat.”
― Padma Venkatraman, quote from Climbing the Stairs


“Everytime I climbed the stairs, my heart lifted.”
― Padma Venkatraman, quote from Climbing the Stairs


“In my mind's eye, my chess pieces had grown into lines of dark-skinned men marching forward, being beaten by a white army and crumpling one by one into my father's waiting arms, bloodstains blossoming across their shoulders. (32)”
― Padma Venkatraman, quote from Climbing the Stairs


“If a dog barks at the sun, it does not dim the sun's brightness. (44)”
― Padma Venkatraman, quote from Climbing the Stairs


“The joyous clamor in my mind drowned out the strange sound outside the car: a humming noise that was gathering speed and growing louder, a roar that was not the waves curling up the beach.”
― Padma Venkatraman, quote from Climbing the Stairs



About the author

Padma Venkatraman
Born place: Chennai, India
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Just because you will not see the work completed does not mean you are free not to take it up.”
― Greg Iles, quote from Turning Angel


“I don’t think of people as queer or straight,” the Doc said. “Not when you’re as old as I. And I don’t think God does either.”
“I didn’t know you believed in God, Doc,” Vance said.”
― James Purdy, quote from Narrow Rooms


“Research suggests that in over 90 percent of all successful new businesses, historically, the strategy that the founders had deliberately decided to pursue was not the strategy that ultimately led to the business’s success.12 Entrepreneurs rarely get their strategies exactly right the first time. The successful ones make it because they have money left over to try again after they learn that their initial strategy was flawed, whereas the failed ones typically have spent their resources implementing a deliberate strategy before its viability could be known. One of the most important roles of senior management during a venture’s early years is to learn from emergent sources what is working and what is not, and then to cycle that learning back into the process through the deliberate channel.”
― Clayton M. Christensen, quote from The Innovator's Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth


“But then it came to her…just change your mind about it. About everything. Shit. That was it. "What an idiot she was. It was that simple. Just decide to stop struggling and embrace it all as a gift. And in a single second, everything is different.”
― Karen Kondazian, quote from The Whip


“I grow weary of the love
That lasts for a night
When it should be there
The next sunrise”
― Irum Zahra, quote from Psychaotic: See The World In Red And Black


Interesting books

Bec
(10.5K)
Bec
by Darren Shan
Jack of Shadows
(5.2K)
Jack of Shadows
by Roger Zelazny
Beyond the Grave
(40.8K)
Beyond the Grave
by Jude Watson
Knight
(47.3K)
Knight
by Kristen Ashley
Iniquity
(5.8K)
Iniquity
by Amy A. Bartol
Written in Bone
(9K)
Written in Bone
by Simon Beckett

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.