R.K. Narayan > Quotes

“life is about making right things and going on..”
― R.K. Narayan, Malgudi Days

“You become [a] writer by writing. It is a yoga.”
― R. K. Narayan

“The difference between a simpleton and an intelligent man, according to the man who is convinced that he is of the latter category, is that the former wholeheartedly accepts all things that he sees and hears while the latter never admits anything except after a most searching scrutiny. He imagines his intelligence to be a sieve of closely woven mesh through which nothing but the finest can pass. ”
― R. K. Narayan

“Friendship was another illusion like love, though it did not reach the same mad heights. People pretended that they were friends, when the fact was they were brought together by force of circumstances.”
― R.K. Narayan, The Bachelor of Arts

“We always question the bonafides of the man who tells us unpleasant facts.”
― R. K. Narayan

“No one ever accepts criticism so cheerfully. Neither the man who utters it nor the man who invites it really means it.”
― R. K. Narayan

“I returned from the village. The house seemed unbearably dull. But I bore it. "There is no escape from loneliness and separation...." I told myself often. "Wife, child, brothers, parents, friends.... We come together only to go apart again. It is one continuous movement. They move away from us as we move away from them. The law of life can't be avoided. The law comes into operation the moment we detach ourselves from our mother's womb. All struggle and misery in life is due to our attempt to arrest this law or get away from it or in allowing ourselves to be hurt by it. The fact must be recognized. A profound unmitigated loneliness is the only truth of life. All else is false. My mother got away from her parents, my sisters from our house, I and my brother away from each other, my wife was torn away from me, my daughter is going away with my mother, my father has gone away from his father, my earliest friends - where are they? They scatter apart like the droplets of a waterspray. The law of life. No sense in battling against it...." Thus I reconciled myself to this separation with less struggle than before.”
― R.K. Narayan, The English Teacher

“This education has reduced us to a nation of morons; we were strangers to our own culture and camp followers of another culture, feeding on leavings and garbage . . . What about our own roots? . . . I am up against the system, the whole method and approach of a system of education which makes us morons, cultural morons, but efficient clerks for all your business and administration offices.”
― R.K. Narayan, The English Teacher

“This is my child. I planted it. I saw it grow. I loved it. Don't cut it down...”
― R.K. Narayan, Malgudi Days

“Certain things acquired an evil complexion if phrased, but remained harmless in the mind.”
― R.K. Narayan, The Vendor of Sweets

“It seems to me that we generally do not have a correct measure of our own wisdom.”
― R.K. Narayan, The Guide

“How can two living entities possessing intelligence and judgement ever be tied together for a lifetime?”
― R.K. Narayan, Malgudi Days

“If someone should ask, "how should an Opposition function?" the best answer would be, "in the manner of a traditional mother-in-law who watches the performance of household work by a daughter-in-law and follows her about with her comments.”
― R. K. Narayan

“Do you realize how few ever really understand how fortunate they are in their circumstances?”
― R.K. Narayan

“you threw a stone into a gutter it would only spurt filth in your face.”
― R.K. Narayan, Malgudi Days

“The faint aroma of gum and calico that hangs about a library is as the fragrance of incense to me. I think the most beautiful sight is the gilt-edged backs of a row of books on a shelf. The alley between two well-stocked shelves in a hall fills me with the same delight as passing through a silent avenue of trees. The colour of a binding-cloth and its smooth texture gives me the same pleasure as touching a flower on its stalk. A good library hall has an atmosphere which elates. I have seen one or two University Libraries that have the same atmosphere as a chapel, with large windows, great trees outside, and glass doors sliding on noiseless hinges.”
― R K Narayan

“Death and its associates, after the initial shock, produce callousness.”
― R. K. Narayan

“It is stimulating to live in a society that is not standardized or mechanized, and is free from monotony.”
― R.K. Narayan, Malgudi Days

“We come together only to go apart again. The law of life can't be avoided. The law comes into operation the moment we detach ourselves from our mother's womb. All struggle & misery in life is due to our attempt to arrest this law or get away from it or in allowing ourselves to be hurt by it. The fact must be recognized. A profound unmitigated loneliness is the only truth of life. All else is false. The law of life. No sense in battling against it...”
― R K Narayan

“All the jarring, rattling and clanking, spurting and hissing of the moving train of the train dissolved in the distance into something that was half a sob and half a sigh.”
― R K Narayan, Swami and Friends, The Bachelor of Arts, The Dark Room, The English Teacher: Introduction by Alexander McCall Smith

“Staring is half the victory in love.”
― R.K. Narayan, The Bachelor of Arts

“I came in several times and spoke, but perhaps you were asleep when I thought you were awake.'
'You are very considerate to explain it this way,' Sugreeva said, 'but I was drunk”
― R.K. Narayan, The Ramayana: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic

“But it was like hiding a corpse. I’ve come to the conclusion that 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

“Travelers are an enthusiastic lot. They do not mind any inconvenience as long as they have something to see.”
― R.K. Narayan, The Guide

“It was Monday morning. Swaminathan was reluctant to open his eyes. he considered Monday specially unpleasant in the calendar. After the delicious freedom of Saturday and Sunday, it was difficult to get into the Monday mood of work and discipline. He shuddered at the very thought of school: the dismal yellow building; the fire-eyed Vedanayagam, his class teacher, and headmaster with his thin long cane...”
― R.K. Narayan, Swami and Friends, The Bachelor of Arts, The Dark Room, The English Teacher: Introduction by Alexander McCall Smith

“What can we do with a creature who returns to his doom with such a free heart?”
― R.K. Narayan, Malgudi Days

“One often hears of suicide pacts. It seems to me a wonderful solution, like going on a long holiday. We could sit and talk one night perhaps, and sip our glasses of milk, and maybe we should wake up in a trouble-free world. I’d propose it this very minute if I were sure you would keep the pact, but I fear that I may go ahead and you may change your mind at the last second.
‘And have the responsibility of disposing of your body?’ I said, which was the worst thing I could have said.”
― R.K. Narayan, The Guide

“Past is gone, present is going, and tomorrow is day after tomorrow’s yesterday. So why worry about anything? God is in all this.”
― R.K. Narayan, The Painter of Signs

“Even when you realize that the one before you is an enemy and must be treated sternly, do not hurt with words.”
― R.K. Narayan, The Ramayana: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic

“Every creature is born with a potential store of violence.”
― R.K. Narayan, A Tiger for Malgudi