Anita Desai Quotes

(Would you get very angry if someone said you were the Virginia Woolf of India and you "mothered" the psychological novel in India?) Desai: No, I would be denying something which is fairly obvious. One is the influence of Virginia Woolf upon my own work, and the other is that there weren't very many women writers in India at that time writing psychological novels.

She was the tree that grew in the centre of their lives and in whose shade they lived.”

...the moon that hung over the garden like some great priceless pearl, flawed and blemished with grey shadowy ridges as only a very great beauty can risk being.

I do not recognise India of the present time where, under the banner of 'Hindutva,' intimidation and bigotry seek to silence writers, scholars and all who believe in secular and rational thought.

My style of writing is to allow the story to unfold on its own. I try not to structure my work too rigidly.

Isn't it strange how life won't flow, like a river, but moves in jumps, as if it were held back by locks that are opened now and then to let it jump forwards in a kind of flood?

I aim to tell the truth about any subject, not a romance or fantasy, not avoid the truth.

India is a curious place that still preserves the past, religions, and its history. No matter how modern India becomes, it is still very much an old country.

Wherever you go becomes a part of you somehow.

That was the way life was: it lay so quiet, so still that you put your fingers out to touch it, to stroke it. Then it leapt up and struck you full in the face so that you spun about and spun about, gasping. The flames leapt up all around, rising by inches every minute, rising in rings.”