Vikas Swarup > Quotes

“Love doesn't happen in an instant. It creeps up on you and then it turns your life upside down. It colors your waking moments, and fills your dreams. You begin to walk on air and see life in brilliant new shades. But it also brings with it a sweet agony, a delicious torture.”
― Vikas Swarup, Q & A

“And for the first time in my life, I saw something new reflected in the eyes that saw me. Respect. It taught me a very valuable lesson. That dreams have power only over your own mind. But with money you can have power over the minds of others”
― Vikas Swarup, Q & A: Slumdog Millionaire

“Unheralded we came into this world. Unheralded we will go out. But while we are in this world, we do such deeds that even if this generation does not remember, the next generation cannot forget.”
― Vikas Swarup, Al Milyūnayr Al Mutasharrad =Slumdog Millionaire

“The one conclusion I have reached is that whiskey is a great leveler. You might be a hotshot advertising executive or a lowly foundry worker, but if you cannot hold your drink, you are just a drunkard.”
― Vikas Swarup, Q & A

“I wonder what it feels like to have no desires left because you have satisfied them all, smothered them with money even before they are born. Is an existence without desire very desirable? And is the poverty of desire better than rank poverty itself?”
― Vikas Swarup, Q & A

“And I realized again that real life is different from reel life.”
― Vikas Swarup, Q & A

“A great artist is not one who merely fits into a genre but one who defines the genre.”
― Vikas Swarup, Q & A

“You must never take a direct route to your destination.”
― Vikas Swarup, Q & A

“Till now, my conception of love has been based entirely on what I have seen in Hindi films, where the hero and the heroine make eye contact, and whoosh, some strange chemistry sets their hearts beating and their vocal chords tingling, and the next you see of them they are off singing songs in Swiss Villages and American shopping malls.”
― Vikas Swarup, Q & A

“One does not question a miracle.”
― Vikas Swarup, Q & A

“Train journeys are about possibilities. They denote a change in state. When you arrive, you are no longer the same person who departed.”
― Vikas Swarup, Q & A

“It's a basic rule of human nature that the promise of unexpected wealth short-circuits both intelligence and common sense.”
― Vikas Swarup, The Accidental Apprentice

“There are those who will say that I brought this upon myself. By dabbling in that quiz show. They will wag a finger at me and remind me of what the elders in Dharavi say about never crossing the dividing line that separates the rich from the poor. After all, what business did a penniless waiter have to be participating in a brain quiz? The brain is not an organ we are authorized to use. We are supposed to use only our hands and legs.”
― Vikas Swarup, Q & A: Slumdog Millionaire

“Never judge a man's actions until you know his motives”
― Vikas Swarup, Six Suspects

“Because luck comes from within”
― Vikas Swarup

“The line of head is strong, but the line of heart is weak. And most importantly, the line of life is short. The stars do not seem to be right.”
― Vikas Swarup, Q & A

“The burning ambition of my life was to marry her one day. The consuming worry of my life was to whether she would agree.”
― Vikas Swarup, Q & A

“There is some pleasure even in pain. A sweet ecstasy.”
― Vikas Swarup, Q & A

“Confuse your trail, lose your trail.”
― Vikas Swarup, Q & A

“Your beauty is an elixir.
Which has given an orphan life.
Lovesick I will die, from the grave I will cry
Should you decline to become my wife.”
― Vikas Swarup, Q & A

“I held my breath and wished for that moment to last as long as it possibly could, because a waking dream is always more fleeting than a sleeping one.”
― Vikas Swarup, Q & A

“God made the human body like a machine with built-in obsolescence.”
― Vikas Swarup, The Accidental Apprentice

“Lajwanti made the cardinal mistake of trying to cross the dividing line that separates the existence of the rich from that of the poor. She made the fatal error of dreaming beyond her means. The bigger the dream, the bigger the disappointment.”
― Vikas Swarup, Q & A

“It is a destiny of a woman to suffer in silence.”
― Vikas Swarup, Q & A

“After all, what business did a penniless waiter have to be participating in a brain quiz? The brain is not an organ we are authorized to use. We are supposed to use only our hands and legs.”
― Vikas Swarup, Q & A

“You have been counting rosary beads for an era
But the wandering of your mind does not halt
Forsake the beads in your hand
And start moving the beads of your heart.”
― Vikas Swarup, Q & A

“I may have entered her body, but now I want to enter her mind.”
― Vikas Swarup, Q & A

“The city may have chosen to ignore the ugly growth of Dharavi, but a cancer cannot be stopped simply by being declared illegal. It still kills with its slow poison.”
― Vikas Swarup, Q & A

“You should take a good look at all sides of an issue before making a decision. Put something away in case of an emergency. New neighbors will bring good cheer. A small problem may occur at home base, but you will solve it quickly and correctly. Don’t offer smart advice unless you are really asked to comment.”
― vikas swarup

“...a rainy day ceases to have meaning for a person who has lived in the open under a monsoon cloud most of his life.”
― Vikas Swarup, Q & A