18 quotes found
"Tamilnadu has known no "real" [R]enaissance-like development . . . there was no development comparable to the European rinascimento of the fifteenth–sixteenth centuries, to European rationalism of the seventeen–eighteenth centuries or to European empiricism and positivism of the nineteenth century."
"However, until before the bhakti trend set in, before the so-called 'dark ages', in the Tamil classical age, in the age of Murugan, the Tamil man seems to have had a clear, optimistic, rather simple, very secular view of life, in a heroic age of meat-eating and wine-drinking pre-feudal society, with relatively simple but meaningful religious conceptions."
"the pitfall of the simplistic view of Indian cultural development, which reduces everything to the tension between autochthonous features (primarily Dravidian) and imported Indo-Aryan traits. ... [the indigenous Tamil framework] was invaded, partly violated and raped, partly adopted and adapted, by the attempts of later commentators to force Tamil ideology into the procrustean mould of the Brahminic-Sanskritic models."
"As Wheeler pointed out long ago, Harappan civilization is the most spatially extensive of all the early civilizations we know."
"He became an optimist on the day when he perceived reality."
"My book focuses on racism, a subject that concerns both women and men. It is aimed at a broader audience than just women. The injustices suffered by women may be partly the subject of my next work.But I think that rather than complaining, women would do better to learn how to defend themselves effectively, and for that, they need to study and better understand men, their weaknesses, their aspirations—in short, what goes on in men's heads."
"Racism is not inevitable. One only has to take the case of the United States of America, the history of this country, the Civil War, the abolition of slavery... The case of the United States is very significant for the history of racism and racial segregation. Martin Luther King fought and many other Black people still do...The Kuklux Klan existed and still exists, but over the years, it is losing ground although some Black Americans continue to be victims of racism. The struggle continues. We have known Black American ambassadors...For me, all this symbolizes in some way the decline of racism, a little more than just a glimmer of hope. Who knows how long it will take for South Africa to resemble New York where today, Whites and Blacks rub shoulders, mixing indifferently?."
"As a feminist, I am not gentle with women who rely on a man to make them happy. I am talking about those, illiterate or not, who take their body for a commodity to be sold and naturally do not stop powdering and dusting their body so that the commodity is presentable to the man who wants to attribute some value to it and buy it."
"There are worse things than having behaved foolishly in public. There are worse things than these miniature betrayals, committed or endured or suspected; there are worse things than not being able to sleep for thinking about them. It is 5 a.m. All the worse things come stalking in and stand icily about the bed looking worse and worse and worse"
"It is 5 a.m. All the worse things come stalking in and stand icily about the bed looking worse and worse and worse."
"But now that I am in love with a place which doesn’t care how I look, or if I’m happy,happy is how I look."
"I stopped writing poetry when I stopped smoking.... It was more complicated than that."
"I write in praise of the solitary act: of not feeling a trespassing tongue forced into one's mouth, one's breath smothered, nipples crushed against the ribcage, and that metallic tingling in the chin set off by a certain odd nerve: unpleasure."
"Somehow we manage it: to like our friends, to tolerate not only their little ways but their huge neuroses, their monumental oddness: "Oh well," we smile, "it's one of his funny days.""
"My verse forms are relatively traditional (traditions alter). In general they have moved away from strict classical patterns in the direction of greater freedom — as is usual with most artists learning a trade. It takes courage, however, to leave all props behind, to cast oneself, like Matisse, upon pure space. I still await that confidence."
"Perhaps relationships work more powerfully when there is absence and tension and a lot of heartache. I can't live with people."
"Poetry is a search for ways of communication; it must be conducted with openness, flexibility, and a constant readiness to listen."
"All poets, all writers, are terrible parasites. We use people and experiences."