Aravind Adiga

“I gather you yellow-skinned men, despite your triumphs in sewage, drinking water, and Olympic gold medals, still don't have democracy. Some politician on the radio was saying that that's why we Indian are going to beat you: we may not have sewage, drinking water, and Olympic gold medals, but we do have democracy.If I were making a country, I'd get the sewage pipes first, then the democracy, then I'd go about giving pamphlets and statues of Gandhi to other people, but what do I know? I am just a murderer!”

“People in this country are still waiting for the war of their freedom to come from somewhere else, from the jungles, from the mountains, from China, from Pakistan. That will never happen. Every man must make his own Benaras.The book of your revolution sits in the pit of your belly, young Indian. Crap it out, and read.”

“At a time when India is going through great changes and, with China, is likely to inherit the world from the West, it is important that writers like me try to highlight the brutal injustices of society.”

“I had grown up in a privileged, upper-caste Hindu community; and because my father worked for a Catholic hospital, we lived in a prosperous Christian neighborhood.”

“I grew up, as many Indians do, in an archipelago of tongues. My maternal grandfather, who was a surgeon in the city of Madras, was fluent in at least four languages and used each of them daily.”

“When I was growing up in the south Indian city of Madras, there were only two political parties that mattered; one was run by a former matinee idol, and the other was run by his former screenwriter.”

“In India, it's the rich who have problems with obesity. And the poor are darker-skinned because they work outside and often work without their tops on so you can see their ribs.”

“I want to read Keats and Wordsworth, Hemingway, George Orwell.”

“India's great economic boom, the arrival of the Internet and outsourcing, have broken the wall between provincial India and the world.”

“Indians mock their corrupt politicians relentlessly, but they regard their honest politicians with silent suspicion. The first thing they do when they hear of a supposedly 'clean' politician is to grin. It is a cliche that honest politicians in India tend to have dishonest sons, who collect money from people seeking an audience with Dad.”

“Because in this world, there is a line: on one side are the men who cannot get things done, and on the other side are the men who can. And not one in a hundred will cross that line. Will you?”

“It's amazing. The moment you show cash, everyone knows your language.”

“I am coming back to New York after five years, and it seems that psychics are taking over the city.”

“But isn't it likely that everyone in this world...has killed someone or other on their way to the top?...All I wanted was a chance to be a man--and for that, one murder is enough.”

“My whole life have been treated like a donkey. All I want is that one of mine - at least one - should live like a man.”

“Too much of Indian writing in English, it seemed to me, consisted of middle-class people writing about other middle-class people - and a small slice of life being passed off as an authentic portrait of the country.”

“An honest politician has no goodies to toss around. This limits his effectiveness profoundly, because political power in India is dispersed throughout a multi-tiered federal structure; a local official who has not been paid off can sometimes stop a billion-dollar project.”

“The Rooster Coop was doing its work. Servants have to keep other servants from becoming innovators, experimenters or entrepreneurs. The coop is guarded from the inside.”

“I never did very well as an immigrant. I've lived in several countries and been a disaster everywhere.”

“If we were in India now, there would be servants standing in the corners of this room and I wouldn't notice them. That is what my society is like, that is what the divide is like.”