Manu Joseph > Quotes

“Morality was probably the invention of unattractive men. Whom else does it benefit really”
― Manu Joseph, The Illicit Happiness of Other People

“In this world, it is very hard to escape happiness.” – Unni Chacko”
― Manu Joseph, The Illicit Happiness of Other People

“It is the misanthrope who alone has clarity.By standing outside the huddles of man,he sees a lot,and what he often sees is the evidence that people are not as smart as dogs think they are.And he wants to see it time and again.In the fog of ambiguities and mysteries,he desperately searches for truths because truth usually shows humanity in a poor light”
― Manu Joseph, The Illicit Happiness of Other People

“But then the fate of shy people is that all of their fears usually come true.”
― Manu Joseph, The Illicit Happiness of Other People

“Men do things. We can't help it. That's all there is to it. As you will discover in time, the primary choice every man has to make is whether he wants to be himself or if he wants peace.”
― Manu Joseph, The Illicit Happiness of Other People

“The fate of every love story, he knew very well, is in the rot of togetherness, or in the misery of separation. Lovers often choose the first with the same illusory wisdom that makes people choose to die later than now.”
― Manu Joseph, Serious Men

“Scientists want to search for alien signals because that's what gets them publicity. They are like Jesus Christ."

"Jesus Christ?" Nambodri asked, with a faintly derogatory chuckle.

"Yes. They are exactly like Jesus Christ. You know that he turned water into wine."

"I've heard that story."

"From the point of view of pure chemistry, it is more miraculous to make wine into water than water into wine. But he did not do that. Because if he had gone to someone's house and converted their wine into water, they would have crucified him much earlier. He knew, Jana. He knew making water into wine was a more popular thing to do.”
― Manu Joseph, Serious Men

“The Boy will not be a failure. Mythili knows.She has seen the generations before.The boy will make it.As his father has said,he does not have the option of failure.He will crack atleast one entrance exam,and he will one day have a nice house in a suburb of San Francisco,or in a suburb of a suburb of San Francisco.He will find a cute Tamil Brahmin wife and make her produce two sweet children.He will drive a Toyota Corolla to work.And there,in the conference room of his office,he will tell his small team,with his hands stretched wide in a managerial way,'We must think out of the box”
― Manu Joseph, The Illicit Happiness of Other People

“No matter what the delusions are, parents do not really know their children”
― Manu Joseph, The Illicit Happiness of Other People

“So what is truth, then ?’
‘Truth is a successful delusion.”
― Manu Joseph, The Illicit Happiness of Other People

“The tragedy of mediocrity is that even mediocre people shake their heads and mull over how standard are falling.
- Serious Men”
― Manu Joseph

“How unfortunate is the guy who does not live in the extravagant memory of an infatuated young woman.”
― Manu Joseph, The Illicit Happiness of Other People

“He stares at the open textbook for hours and is distracted by the pain of the parallelogram, which is slanted for ever. His nails scratch the page to straighten its tired limbs. It affects him, the great arrogance of the Equilateral Triangle, the failed aspiration of the octagon to be a circle, the eternal suffocation of the denominator that has to bear the weight of the unjust numerator, the loneliness of Pluto. And the smallness of Mercury, always a mere dot next to a yellow sun. In this world, there is no respect for Mercury.”
― Manu Joseph, The Illicit Happiness Of Other People

“If two people believe in the same idea of truth, it is a delusion.”
― Manu Joseph, The Illicit Happiness of Other People

“My love, I feel terrible without you. It is like being with you.”
― Manu Joseph, The Illicit Happiness Of Other People

“It is a misfortune to be in the presence of a writer, even a failed writer, to be seen by him, be his passing study and remain in his corrupt memory. It is like the insult of a corpse on the road by a war photographer.”
― Manu Joseph, The Illicit Happiness of Other People

“The end of an ox is beef, the end of a lie is grief.”
― Manu Joseph, Serious Men

“He decayed in a state of gentle happiness.”
― Manu Joseph, The Illicit Happiness of Other People

“Marriage needed the absurdity of values.”
― Manu Joseph, Serious Men

“The true nature of sorrow is boredom.”
― Manu Joseph, The Illicit Happiness of Other People

“The tragedy of mediocrity is that even mediocre people shake their heads and mull over how “standards are falling”. So”
― Manu Joseph, Serious Men

“Strong people write bad stories.”
― Manu Joseph, The Illicit Happiness of Other People

“A man cannot be exactly the way he wants to be and also dream of keeping his wife”
― Manu Joseph, Serious Men

“The dedication of passwords was the new fellowship of marriage. To each other, couples had become furtive asterisks”
― Manu Joseph, Serious Men

“Yes, Yes. Indians were the oldest civilization on Earth, the greatest, the best. And only Indians had culture. Others were all dumb nomads and whores.”
― Manu Joseph, Serious Men

“Thoma is amazed at the telepathy of women. How miraculous it is for one woman to do something weird and another woman to extract its intended meaning.”
― Manu Joseph, The Illicit Happiness Of Other People

“Fight, Thoma, put fight.”
― Manu Joseph, The Illicit Happiness of Other People

“The distinction between a delusion and a lie is the very difference between a successful saint and a fraud.”
― Manu Joseph, The Illicit Happiness of Other People

“At the heart of memory, is the stillness of time.”
― Manu Joseph, The Illicit Happiness of Other People

“Happiness as an inescapable fate, not a pursuit.”
― Manu Joseph, The Illicit Happiness of Other People