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Meaning
The quote argues that people are not voiceless by nature. It says they are often prevented from being heard, either by force or by choice from those in power. The point is that silence is usually imposed rather than natural.
When It Was Said
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Who It Was Said To
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Historical Context
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Source
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Original Language & Translation
Originally said in English.
Did They Really Say It?
No source found on Wikiquote; the quote is listed as attributed to Arundhati Roy.
Did You Know?
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About Arundhati Roy
Indian author and political activist
Arundhati Roy is an Indian author and political activist. She is best known for her novel The God of Small Things, published in 1997, which won the Booker Prize for Fiction that year and became the biggest-selling book by a non-expatriate Indian author. Her work and public life have also been shaped by her activism on human rights and environmental issues. In 2024, she won the PEN Pinter Prize from English PEN, and she chose the imprisoned British-Egyptian writer and activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah as the Writer of Courage with whom to share the award.
More from Arundhati Roy (121 quotes) →More quotes by Arundhati Roy
- “Pity the nation that has to silence its writers for speaking their minds.”Arundhati Roy
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- “As a writer, I have to go to a different place now. As a person... I want to step off whatever this stage is…”Arundhati Roy
Explore Silence
- “Poetry can be more eloquent than the most eloquent sermons, and it becomes a weapon more formidable than the…”M. Fethullah Gülen
- “You see how I live: shadows and silence, leaving things as I find them because I have no reason to disturb th…”Thomas Ligotti
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Books by Arundhati Roy
The God of Small Things
1997
Field Notes on Democracy
2010
Things that can and cannot be said
2016
The End of Imagination
2019
Walking with the comrades
2012