Literary Quotes
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I find that it's really important for me to imagine characters and situations. That allows me a lot of freedom.
Quote by -Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
After September 11, 2001, I was feeling like I really wanted more understanding between cultures. It seemed to me that so much of what happened on September 11 was because people didn't understand each other and were suspicious of each other.
Quote by -Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
I'm a very senses-oriented person, and I want to bring readers in on the level of the senses, so they can experience another culture and another place.
Quote by -Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
To achieve important things, we have to sacrifice what's important to us. That's an idea that's very central to Indian thinking.
Quote by -Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
By the time we're adults, our ideas have solidified. So I wanted to write for a younger audience, who would perhaps love heroes from other cultures.
Quote by -Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
I think writers from both East and West have long been fascinated by the ancient tales and the opportunity to reinterpret them.
Quote by -Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
I came into Chicago in winter - I'd never been so cold in my life! I was very homesick, and a poor student at that time. America seemed so different and so filled with amazing things - and almost all of them were out of my reach.
Quote by -Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
As I lived on in America, I got to truly know the people of this country - so many kind and wonderful people, people of so many races - who helped me in so many ways. Who became my friends. I realized that underneath our different accents, habits, foods, religions, ways of thinking, we shared a common humanity.
Quote by -Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Two great and terrible truths of war are these: War is easy to enter into, but difficult to end. And ultimately, in war there are no winners.
Quote by -Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
To make money for college, I worked in our college dining room.
Quote by -Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
I'm too careful with money - comes out of being poor for several years while growing up.
Quote by -Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
I hate it when people throw away food - I've seen too many hungry people.
Quote by -Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
India lends itself well to fictionalization, but ultimately, it all depends on the writer's imagination.
Quote by -Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
To some extent, I draw on what I see around me; in other places, I imagine what I write.
Quote by -Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
I write best late at night, when everyone in the house has gone to bed. There's something magical about that late night silence that appeals to me.
Quote by -Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
I type everything on my computer. I carry a writer's notebook everywhere, in case I am struck by an idea. I forget things unless I write them down. I'm planning to learn how to dictate into my cellphone; I think that will be very helpful, too.
Quote by -Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
I write in my study, where I also have my prayer altar. I believe that keeps me focused and gives me positive energy and reminds me that I'm merely the instrument of greater creative forces.
Quote by -Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
I grew up in Kolkata in a traditional family. We had friends who lived in mansions just like the one in 'Oleander Girl.' Growing up, I was fascinated by the old house and the old Bengal lifestyle.
Quote by -Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
I work very hard at creating complex characters, a mix of positives and negatives. They are all flawed. I believe flaws are almost universal, and they help us understand, sympathise and, paradoxically, feel closer to such characters.
Quote by -Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
I had friends who died in the 9/11 tragedy; some of my friends lost family members in the aftermath of Godhra.
Quote by -Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
I came to the plain fields of Ohio with pictures painted by Hollywood movies and the works of Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller. None of them had much to say, if at all, about Dayton, Ohio.
Quote by -Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
I have been watching how Indian women are forced to do certain things, as the stories of sacrifice and devotion in mythology demand from them. And then there are inspiring stories about women like the Rani of Jhansi that offer women refreshing role models.
Quote by -Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
I have no particular reader in mind, but a passionate desire to tell an honest, moving story.
Quote by -Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
A kshatriya woman's highest purpose in life is to support the warriors in her life: her father, brother, husband and sons.
Quote by -Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
The Mahabharata might have been a great and heroic battle, but there are no winners. The losers, of course, lose.
Quote by -Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
After 9/11, there was so much distress in America that it led to an inter-cultural breakdown. Some of our communities were targeted. Many of our adults shut themselves off from other cultures. I tried to bring children of Indian and other cultures together in my literature.
Quote by -Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
I have a variety of readers from across the diasporic community, not just from South Asia. I like to write large stories that include all of us - about common and cohesive experiences which bring together many immigrants, their culture shocks, transformations, concepts of home and self in a new land.
Quote by -Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
The ancient world is always accessible, no matter what culture you come from. I remember when I was growing up in India and I read the 'Iliad' and the 'Odyssey.'
Quote by -Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Immigration was a huge force in changing my outlook. I moved to America 30 years ago. I had to reassess my beliefs, especially about women's roles.
Quote by -Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
India has been a very accepting culture. We pride ourselves on that. That is a global truth. In fact, it forms a major theme in my books.
Quote by -Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
One of the things that I am learning is that each generation will have its own negotiations with identity. And one generation can not necessarily help the other generation with it.
Quote by -Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Sometimes what is 'real' because it takes place in the physical world, like 9/11, is so unreal on the level of the soul. Then other things, which in terms of the physical world seem so magical and unbelievable, on the level of the soul seem very real.
Quote by -Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
I started putting down my thoughts on paper out of loneliness while I was studying in America. I was very close to my grandfather, and when he died, I couldn't visit home. I started scribbling those thoughts.
Quote by -Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
As a writer, I have to show complexities. Through my writings, I hope to bring out people in different situations and not just one-dimensional beings.
Quote by -Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
I realise that a novel and a film are different mediums. As artistes, we need to respect other artistes. It also needs a lot of courage to take risks to experiment and interpret known literary works.
Quote by -Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
America is a country formed by diverse communities from different countries. Overall, the country is very hospitable and gives opportunities to grow. Saying that, I'd also say I'm not a 'white' immigrant; a South Asian's experience is different than, say, a European immigrant's.
Quote by -Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Dissolving differences has always been an important motive for my writing, right from 'The Mistress of Spices.'
Quote by -Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
When I was volunteering with Hurricane Katrina refugees in Houston in 2005, I first started thinking about the whole phenomenon of grace under pressure.
Quote by -Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
I've long been interested in the tale-within-a-tale phenomenon. I'm familiar with many tales which use this framework or the device of many people in one place, telling their stories, or multiple storytellers commenting on each others' stories with their own.
Quote by -Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
'The Mahabharata,' which inspired my novel 'Palace of Illusions,' also has many stories embedded within the main tale.
Quote by -Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
I was about 12 when I first encountered 'The Moonstone' - or a Classics Illustrated version of it - digging through an old trunk in my grandfather's house on a rainy Bengali afternoon.
Quote by -Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
It is an Englishman who turns out to be the real villain of 'The Moonstone.' By contrast, the three Indian priests who dedicate their lives to returning the jewel to its proper home in the temple, though they have nothing personal to gain by doing so, are positively heroic.
Quote by -Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
'The Moonstone' was all I could have hoped for. A mysterious, cursed jewel, wrested from India, only to be stolen later from a great British mansion. Enigmatic, dangerous priests who follow it across the ocean in hopes of wresting it back.
Quote by -Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
A book can be wonderful and powerful and accessible and artful all at the same time.
Quote by -Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni