Memorable Quotes from "The Death of Vishnu" by Manil Suri - 2

The eyes. Surdas's eyes.
The two fountains of sight.

He said, with these eyes have I sinned, and with these eyes shall I cleanse myself.
these eyes shall be my freedom. These eyes shall be my penance. With these eyes shall I attain salvation.

And that one moonlit starry night - when she crushed that first golgappa in her mouth, felt the crisp papdi shards and the soft yielding chickpeas between her teeth, tasted the sweet and fiery chutneys on her tongue, closed he eyes as the gush of tamarind water exploded down her throat.

That he would scrape and scrub away at her Dongriness, until she emerged polished and precious, like a multifaceted jewel, able to hold her own with razor wit and glittering personality.

Why, then, did he not understand the mechanism of faith? What did religion do to people, to provoke such obstinacy, such hysteria - how did it push people to the stage of torturing themselves and killing each other?

Religion existed to control society, to monitor those without the capacity to think things through for themselves, to provide promises and shimmering images in the sky, so that the urges of the masses could be calmed and regulated.

What after all, did the word 'Faith' connote, except a willing blindness to the lack of actual proof? It was only natural that Arifa, with her untended intellect, had to lean on this crutch of faith to negotiate the inscrutability of life.

After all wasn't he constantly amazed at the number of very smart people who were believers- hadn't even Einstein professed the existence of God?

He supposed this was the essence of faith. There was no science that governed it, no calculus that propelled it, just the raw strength of his own conviction. Whether he succeeded or not depended on how well he could combat doubt, both his own and in others.

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Memorable Quotes from "The Death of Vishnu" by Manil Suri - 1

Mr.Asrani shook his head at this awe-inspiring compounding of in auspiciousness.

He hated venturing out on amavas. He wished someone would invent an umbrella that would ward off the rays of misfortune he could feel raining down upon him such days. His baldness made him feel extra vulnerable.

He realizes he has to escape the noise.The noise that has tormented him for so long. Born at the moment of his own birth, it has swelled insidiously over the years.

"Thought control," he would call it, "something to keep busy the teeming masses."

An image from the Koran kept coming to her - that of Abu Lahab being consumed by flames, his wife bringing the firewood, a rope tied around her neck.

"How does the boy look?" Mr. Asrani asked.
"Look? Is that the only thing that occurs to you? What is she going to do - lick his good looks when they have nothing to eat?"

She would cook to kill tonight, she would scent the gulab jamuns with the perfume of her own youth, sweeten them with the syrup of her own beauty.

That's what Kavita decided. She would run away. Elope, they called it - the English word had such a voluptuous feel. All those movies, all those stories. She would be Laila, she would be Heer, she would be Juliet.

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Memorable Quotes from Disgrace by J.M.Coetzee

The gossip-mill, he thinks, turning day and night, grinding reputations.

Perhaps it's the right of the young to be protected from the sight of their elders in the throes of passion. That is what whores are for, after all: to put up with ecstasies of the old.

It reminds me too much of Mao's China. Recantation, self-criticism, public apology. I'm old-fashioned, I would prefer simply to be put against a wall and shot. Have done with it.

These are puritanical times. Private life is public business. Prurience is respectable, prurience and sentiments.

Sooner murder an infant in it's cradle, than nurse unacted desires.

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Memorable Quotes from LOST - Everybody Loves Hugo

“In a World of Conflict and Strife, There is But One Fact We All Can Agree Upon: Everybody Loves Hugo.”

"The island was done with her, I wonder what will happen when it is done with us."

"Jacob says to talk to Locke."

"I dont have to prove anything to you Richard. You either come with me, or keep blowing up."

"Ask Jacob, what the island is? Just ask him."

"The rec room looked pretty gnarly on my way in. What do you think 100K might buy?"

“How do you break the ice with a smoke monster?”

"Hurley you asked me to trust you, and this is me trusting you?"

"Is there anything I could do to help you?" - Dont get yourself killed.

"I figured you will like cheese, cuz everybody likes cheese :)."

"You like me because....you are delusional."

"Why arent you afraid? - I have no reason to be afraid."

"You got weapons, and we got weapons. I dont want anyone get killed."

Memorable Quotes from Disgrace by J.M.Coetzee

"Thanks you Mr. Laurie. You have a good presence. I sense that you like animals."
"Do i like animals? I eat them, so i suppose I must like them, some parts of them."

Lethal: the name of a drug? He would not put it beyond the drug companies. Sudden darkness, from the waters of Lethe.
(lethe one of the seven rivers in Greek Mythology, whose water once you drink takes you into oblivion or forgetfulness).

Sapphic love: an excuse to putting on weight.
(Sapphic : Sapphic: of or pertaining to Sappho, the Grecian poetess from the Isle of Lesbos)

But he is a father, and that is his fate, and as a father grows older he turns more and more - it cannot be helped - towards his daughter. She becomes his second salvation, the bride of his youth reborn. No wonder in fairy stories, queens try to hound their daughters to death.

In adultery, all the tedium of marriage rediscovered.
(Tedium - boredom experienced due something tedious - tediousness: dullness owing to length or slowness)

The blood of life is leaving his body and despair is taking its place., despair that is like gas, odourless, tasteless, without nourishment. You breathe it in, your limbs relax, you cease to care, even at the moment when the steel touches your throat.

Vengeance is like a fire. The more it devours the more hungrier it gets.

Psychopomp - someone who guides the newly dead souls into after-life.

Rigor mortis - stiffening of bones and muscles after death.

What nosiness ! Curious how the whiff of scandal excites women.

Or is being shocked another of the duties she takes on - like a nun who lies down to be violated so that the quota of violation in the world will be reduced?