Anita Desai quotes

Anita Desai is an acclaimed Indian novelist known for her insightful depiction of family life and personal identity. Her works explore the complexities of multiculturalism, gender, and the human psyche. She has received numerous literary awards and is regarded as one of India's leading contemporary writers. Here are 14 of her quotes:

...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.

Anita Desai

Someone who wants to write should make an effort to write a little something every day. Writing in this sense is the same as athletes who practice a sport every day to keep their skills honed.

Anita Desai

Wherever you go becomes a part of you somehow.

Anita Desai

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?

Anita Desai

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

Anita Desai

The book begins and ends with the visits to give the impression of a tunnel into their ancestors and family history. I believe in going backwards into the past - I felt I was digging a tunnel back to the past.

Anita Desai

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.

Anita Desai

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

Anita Desai

I try to trace the connection between the characters and that way a story or plot emerges.

Anita Desai

When I was very young, I used to share much of what I wrote with my family, but as I got older and more self-conscious, it became a much more private process.

Anita Desai

People think that because I write about India I must be trying to portray India in a way.

Anita Desai

Many characters in the novel are representative of types that exist in India. He represents the caste system in India with an air of superiority, the caste system in India and the people thinking that western things are better.

Anita Desai