Quotes from The Guide

R.K. Narayan ·  224 pages

Rating: (7.1K votes)


“It seems to me that we generally do not have a correct measure of our own wisdom.”
― R.K. Narayan, quote from The Guide


“One often hears of suicide pacts. It seems to me a wonderful solution, like going on a long holiday. We could sit and talk one night perhaps, and sip our glasses of milk, and maybe we should wake up in a trouble-free world. I’d propose it this very minute if I were sure you would keep the pact, but I fear that I may go ahead and you may change your mind at the last second.
‘And have the responsibility of disposing of your body?’ I said, which was the worst thing I could have said.”
― R.K. Narayan, quote from The Guide


“A man who preferred to dress like a permanent tourist was just what a guide passionately looked for all his life. You may want to ask why I became a guide or when. I was a guide for the same reason as someone else is a signaler, porter, or guard. It is fated thus. Don’t laugh at my railway associations. The railways got into my blood very early in life. Engines with their tremendous clanging”
― R.K. Narayan, quote from The Guide


“The unbeaten brat will remain unlearned,”
― R.K. Narayan, quote from The Guide


“But it was like hiding a corpse. I’ve come to the conclusion that nothing in this world can be hidden or suppressed. All such attempts are like holding an umbrella to conceal the sun.”
― R.K. Narayan, quote from The Guide



“In a few months I was a seasoned guide. I had viewed myself as an amateur guide and a professional shopman, but now gradually I began to think of myself as a part-time shop-keeper and a full-time tourist guide.”
― R.K. Narayan, quote from The Guide


“But you are not my wife. You are a woman who will go to bed with anyone who flatters your antics. That’s”
― R.K. Narayan, quote from The Guide


“By the twelfth day of his fast, Raju himself has become a tourist attraction. Before an enormous crowd and an American television crew, the starving man is helped down to the drought-stricken river to pray:”
― R.K. Narayan, quote from The Guide


About the author

R.K. Narayan
Born place: in Chennai, India
Born date October 10, 1906
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Popular quotes

“Es interesante la novela que relata los hechos del monstruo de Frankenstein. Por lo general, cuando un monstruo rompe platos, hay cierta tendencia a atribuir esto al instinto destructor del monstruo, pero la autora de dicha novela procede al contrario, y da la siguiente interpretación al tema: es que los platos son frágiles de por sí; y él, como monstruo, sólo pretendía acallar su soledad, pero era la fragilidad de sus víctimas la que inevitablemente lo convertía en un malhechor”
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― Heidi McLaughlin, quote from My Unexpected Forever


“I love you,” he said. He almost yelled it. “And I know that sounds crazy. That’s what you say at the beginning of something, not when it’s almost reached its end. But – I don’t care. I just want to be with you. Maybe it’ll only be for these next few weeks. Maybe it’ll be forever. We can’t know what’ll happen, Anna. All I know is I love you and…we should be together. We just have to be together. We need to be together.”
― quote from Sixteenth Summer


“No, but still, the fact is, at least this is how it seems to me, everybody has to learn about it [love] from scratch for themselves. And we all make the same mistakes time and again while we're learning.”
― Aidan Chambers, quote from Dying to Know You


“I’m well aware that it’s life I need, and it’s life I’m looking for. But the offer has gotten “interpreted” by well-meaning people to say, “Oh, well. Yes, of course . . . God intends life for you. But that is eternal life, meaning, because of the death of Jesus Christ you can go to heaven when you die.” And that’s true . . . in a way. But it’s like saying getting married means, “Because I’ve given you this ring, you will be taken care of in your retirement.” And in the meantime? Isn’t there a whole lot more to the relationship in the meantime? (It’s in the meantime that we’re living out our days, by the way.) Are we just lost at sea? What did Jesus mean when he promised us life? I go back to the source, and what I find is just astounding.”
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