R.K. Narayan > Quotes

“There are no more surprises and shocks in life, so that I watch the flame without agitation. For me the greatest reality is this and nothing else... Nothing else will worry or interest me in life hereafter.”
― R.K. Narayan, The English Teacher

“The Indian novel in English has been around for longer than is generally realized, with the first attempts dating to the middle of the nineteenth century.”
― R.K. Narayan, The Guide

“We stood at the window, gazing on a slender, red streak over the eastern rim of the earth. A cool breeze lapped our faces. The boundaries of our personalities suddenly dissolved. It was a moment of rare, immutable joy--a moment for which one feels grateful to Life and Death.”
― R.K. Narayan, The English Teacher

“A profound unmitigated loneliness is the only truth of life. All else is false.”
― R. K. Narayan

“Nothing in this world can be hidden or suppressed. All such attempts are like holding an umbrella to conceal the sun.”
― R.K. Narayan, The Guide

“This work opens the eyes of the world blinded by ignorance. As the sun dispels darkness, so does Bharata by its exposition of religion, duty, action, contemplation, and so forth. As the full moon by shedding soft light helps the buds of the lotus to open, so this Purana by its exposition expands the human intellect. The lamp of history illumines the ‘whole mansion of the womb of Nature.’ —Vyasa”
― R.K. Narayan, The Mahabharata: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic

“Is there anyone who has conquered the gods and lived continuously in that victory? Sooner or later retribution has always come. Do not be contemptuous of men or monkeys.”
― R.K. Narayan, The Ramayana: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic

“Rama glanced at her whenever a beautiful object caught his eye. Every tint of the sky, every shape of a flower or bud, every elegant form of a creeper reminded him of some aspect or other of Sita’s person.”
― R.K. Narayan, The Ramayana: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic

“Words have a knack of breeding more words, whereas laughter, a deafening, roaring laughter, has the knack of swallowing everything up.”
― R.K. Narayan, The Very Best of R. K. Narayan Timless Malgudi

“The next three days I was very busy. My table was placed in the front room of the new house. All my papers and books were arranged neatly. My clothes hung on a peg. The rest of the house was swept and cleaned.”
― R.K. Narayan, The English Teacher

“You are not likely to understand that I am different from the tiger next door, that I possess a soul within this forbidding exterior. I can think, analyse, judge, remember and do everything that you can do, perhaps with greater subtlety and sense. I lack only the faculty of speech. But”
― R.K. Narayan, A Tiger for Malgudi

“violence cannot be everlasting. Sooner or later it has to go, if not through wisdom, definitely through decrepitude, which comes on with years, whether one wants it or not.”
― R.K. Narayan, A Tiger for Malgudi

“The compartment built to ‘seat 8 passengers; 4 British Troops, or 6 Indian Troops’ now carried only nine.”
― R.K. Narayan, Malgudi Days

“If you are ready to hate and want to destroy each other, you may find a hundred reasons”
― R.K. Narayan, A Tiger for Malgudi

“Even a moment of jesting with an asura is likely to lead to incalculable evil consequences.”
― R.K. Narayan, The Ramayana: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic

“If he(Mani) were Swaminathan, he would have closed the whole incident at the beginning by hurling an ink-bottle, if nothing bigger was available, at the teacher.”
― R.K. Narayan, Swami and Friends, The Bachelor of Arts, The Dark Room, The English Teacher: Introduction by Alexander McCall Smith

“people only follow their inclinations, and sooner or later find their reward or retribution. That’s the natural law of life,”
― R.K. Narayan, A Tiger for Malgudi

“A seed that sprouts at the foot of its parent tree remains stunted until it is transplanted.”
― R.K. Narayan, The Ramayana: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic

“If we do not accomplish it in time, what has begun with a monkey may not end with a monkey. Next even a swarm of mosquitoes may decide to challenge your authority.”
― R.K. Narayan, The Ramayana: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic

“all causes of rivalry and clash are senseless and so need no defining or explanation ... Don’t ever fight. No cause is worth a clash.”
― R.K. Narayan, A Tiger for Malgudi

“What you see is my old shell; inside it’s all changed. You can’t share my life.”
― R.K. Narayan, A Tiger for Malgudi

“The only trouble was that the scripture master, Mr. Ebenzar, was a fanatic.”
― R.K. Narayan, Swami and Friends, The Bachelor of Arts, The Dark Room, The English Teacher: Introduction by Alexander McCall Smith

“For all its idyllic charm, and in the joy of companionship of Sita, Rama never lost sight of his main purpose in settling down in this region—he had come here to encounter and destroy the asuras, the fiends who infested this area, causing suffering and hardship to all the good souls who only wanted to be left alone to pursue their spiritual aims in peace. Rama’s whole purpose of incarnation was ultimately to destroy Ravana, the chief of the asuras, abolish fear from the hearts of men and gods, and establish peace, gentleness, and justice in the world.”
― R.K. Narayan, The Ramayana: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic

“Who would decorate a rainbow?”
― R.K. Narayan, The Guide

“I felt too hurt. I thought that Othello was kindlier to Desdemona.”
― R.K. Narayan, The Guide

“Never use the words beast or brute. They’re ugly words coined by man in his arrogance. The human being thinks all other creatures are “beasts”.”
― R.K. Narayan, A Tiger for Malgudi

“Adulthood was just a mask that people wore, the mask made up of a thick jowl and double chin and diamond earrings, or a green sporting shirt, but within it a man kept up the nonsense of his infancy, worse now for being without the innocence and the pure joy. Only the values of commerce gave this state a gloss of importance and urgency.”
― R K Narayan

“Rama watched him fall headlong from his chariot face down onto the earth, and that was the end of the great campaign. Now one noticed Ravana’s face aglow with a new quality. Rama’s arrows had burnt off the layers of dross, the anger, conceit, cruelty, lust, and egotism which had encrusted his real self, and now his personality came through in its pristine form—of one who was devout and capable of tremendous attainments. His constant meditation on Rama, although as an adversary, now seemed to bear fruit, as his face shone with serenity and peace.”
― R.K. Narayan, The Ramayana: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic

“brinjals”
― R.K. Narayan, The Guide

“Raju remained silent. He could not open his lips without provoking admiration. This was a dangerous state of affairs.”
― R.K. Narayan, The Guide