Vikram Chandra · 542 pages
Rating: (2.3K votes)
“Ask him why there are hypocrites in the world.'
'Because it is hard to bear the happiness of others.'
'When are we happy?'
'When we desire nothing and realize that possession is only momentary, and so are forever playing.'
'What is regret?'
'To realize that one has spent one's life worrying about the future.'
'What is sorrow?'
'To long for the past.'
'What is the highest pleasure?'
'To hear a good story.”
― Vikram Chandra, quote from Red Earth and Pouring Rain
“And so I began to read,' Sorkar said. 'And at first the complete works were like a jungle, the language was quicksand. Metaphors turned beneath my feet and became biting snakes, similes fled from my grasp like frightened deer, taking all meaning with them. All was alien, and amidst the hanging, entangling creepers of this foreign grammar, all sound became a cacophany. I feared for myself, for my health and sanity, but then I thought of my purpose, of where I was and who I was, of pain and I pressed on.”
― Vikram Chandra, quote from Red Earth and Pouring Rain
“Then what in your opinion is a good story?'
'What it's always been, monkey,' Ganesha said. 'One dhansu conflict. Some chaka-chak song and dance. Grief. Love. Love for the lover, love for the mother. Love for the land. Comedy. Terror. One tremendous villain whom we must love also. All the elements properly balanced and mixed together, item after item, like a perfect meal with a dance of tastes. There you have it.”
― Vikram Chandra, quote from Red Earth and Pouring Rain
“What could my mother be
to yours? What kin is my father
to yours anyway? And how
did you and I meet ever?
But in love
our hearts have mingled
like red earth and pouring rain.”
― Vikram Chandra, quote from Red Earth and Pouring Rain
“The future is simple. The future is simple, I can hold it i the palm of my hand; and the present is just a matter of endurance, detachment, and a sense of humor.”
― Vikram Chandra, quote from Red Earth and Pouring Rain
“--'There is no completeness; nothing endures, nothing lives; there is only change, unreasoning unreasonable; only birth and death repeating the same story each time, yet different; why?' The voice laughed--'Why you know already; look in your hands.”
― Vikram Chandra, quote from Red Earth and Pouring Rain
Vikram Chandra
Born place: in New Delhi, India
Born date January 1, 1961
See more on GoodReads
“I don’t want your lying kindness. Sure, you’ll smile and be so sweet to me that I’ll trust you, but the minute I don’t give you everything you want the instant you demand it, you’ll turn on me and try to crush me. You’re just like everyone else in the world. No one matters but you. (Aiden)”
― Sherrilyn Kenyon, quote from Upon the Midnight Clear
“LATER.—I must go to Germany. At midnight Murrow phoned from London with the news. The British and French have decided they will not fight for Czechoslovakia and are asking Prague to surrender unconditionally to Hitler and turn over Sudetenland to Germany. I protested to Ed that the Czechs wouldn’t accept it, that they’d fight alone…. “Maybe so. I hope you’re right. But in the meantime Mr. Chamberlain is meeting Hitler at Godesberg on Wednesday and we want you to cover that. If there’s a war, then you can go back to Prague.”
― William L. Shirer, quote from Berlin Diary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent 1934-1941
“I'm an open Minded Man. How about a threesom? You, me and the machine?”
― Jennifer Crusie, quote from Faking It
“And he has guns and dogs that would make the Hound of Baskervilles seem like a bleeding Pekinese.”
― David Baldacci, quote from Deliver Us from Evil
“You should know that there is little you can seek in this world, that there is no need for you to be so greedy, in the end all you can achieve are memories, hazy, intangible, dreamlike memories which are impossible to articulate. When you try to relate them, there are only sentences, the dregs left from the filter of linguistic structures.”
― Gao Xingjian, quote from Soul Mountain
The Spook's Apprenti...
Where Pain Thrives
Take a Bow
Behind Her Eyes
The Butterfly Projec...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.
