Upamanyu Chatterjee · 326 pages
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“We are men without ambition, and all we want is to be left alone, in peace so that we can try and be happy. So few people will understand this simplicity.”
― Upamanyu Chatterjee, quote from English, August: An Indian Story
“In his essay,Agastya had said that his real ambition was to be a domesticated male stray dog because they lived the best life.They were assured of food,and because they were stray they didn't have to guard a house or beg or shake paws or fetch trifles or be clean or anything similarly meaningless to earn their food.They were servile and sycophantic when hungry;once fed,and before sleep,they wagged their tails perfunctorily whenever their hosts passes,as an investment for future meals.A stray dog was free,he slept a lot,barked unexpectedly and only when he wanted to,and got a lot of sex.”
― Upamanyu Chatterjee, quote from English, August: An Indian Story
“He absent-mindedly fondled his crotch and then whipped his hand away.No masturbation,he suddenly decided.He tried to think about this but sustained logical thought on one topic was difficult and unnecessary.No,i am not wasting any semen on Madna.It was an impulse,but he felt that he should record it.In the diary under that date,he wrote,'From today no masturbation.Test your will,you bastard'. Then he wondered at his bravado.No masturbation at all?That was impossible.”
― Upamanyu Chatterjee, quote from English, August: An Indian Story
“I'm happy for you Agastya,you're leaving for a more meaningful context. This place is like a parody, a complete farce, they're trying to build another Cambridge here. At my old University I used to teach Macbeth to my MA English classes in Hindi.English in India is burlesque. But now you'll get out of here to somehow a more real situation. In my time I'd wanted to give this Civil Service exam too, I should have. Now I spend my time writing papers for obscure journals on L. H. Myers and Wyndham Lewis, and teaching Conrad to a bunch of half-wits.”
― Upamanyu Chatterjee, quote from English, August: An Indian Story
“Land is important everywhere, all kinds of land. But you have lived in cities. There you cannot sense the importance of agricultural land, its the real wealth. Each of these squares and hexagrams could be worth lakhs.”
― Upamanyu Chatterjee, quote from English, August: An Indian Story
“Most of us, Ogu, live with a vague dissatisfaction, if we are lucky. Living as we do, upon us is imposed a particular rhythm - birth, education, a job, marriage, then birth again, but we all have minds don't we?
For most Indians of your age, just getting any job is enough. You were more fortunate for you had options before you.
These sound like paternal homilies, don't they, but you've always had surrogate parents, your aunts, and then in Delhi, your Pultukaku, and we've not really spent much time together.”
― Upamanyu Chatterjee, quote from English, August: An Indian Story
“No one reveals himself more completely to others than to himself - that is, if he reveals himself at all.”
― Upamanyu Chatterjee, quote from English, August: An Indian Story
“You feel even more naked and alone, he said silently, when you reveal yourself, a gratuitous act, for the strength and comfort you look for, any of those last illusions of consolations, can finally be only within you.”
― Upamanyu Chatterjee, quote from English, August: An Indian Story
“It was soporific to be mindlessly shunted about in a vehicle, to succumb to marijuana, the heat, the rhythm and roar of the jeep”
― Upamanyu Chatterjee, quote from English, August: An Indian Story
Upamanyu Chatterjee
Born place: Patna, Bihar, India
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“Thirrin Freer Strong-in-the-Arm Lindenshield carried her names with ease. She was thirteen years old, tall for her age and could ride her horse as well as the best of her father’s soldiers. She was also the heir to the throne of the Icemark. Her tutor might add that she was attentive when she wanted to be, clever when she bothered to try, and had her father’s temper. Few compared her to her mother, who had died when Thirrin was born. But those who remembered the proud young woman of the fierce Hypolitan people said that Thirrin was her double.”
― Stuart Hill, quote from The Cry of the Icemark
“When you said you were giving her a ring, I wanted to make sure she didn't eat it by accident. Who puts a ring in a muffin?”
― H.M. Ward, quote from Damaged 2
“Whether or not you’re in politics, everything is political. We all save face for others to perceive us in the best light. Nothing is real until you break down the walls and reveal the ugliness.”
― E.K. Blair, quote from Bang
“As I scrubbed the floor I was scrubbing part of the world. And I was scrubbing my mind to make it clear. It was work that made me think clear, and it was work that made me humble. I could never talk fast, and I could never say what I meant to people, or tell them what they meant to me. My tongue was loosened by my feelings. It was with my hands and with my back and shoulders that I could say how I felt. I had to talk with my arms and my strong hands.”
― Robert Morgan, quote from Gap Creek
“You might be tempted to avoid the messiness of daily living for the tranquility of stillness and peacefulness. This of course would be an attachment to stillness, and like any strong attachment, it leads to delusion. It arrests development and short-circuits the cultivation of wisdom.”
― Jon Kabat-Zinn, quote from Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
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