Balli Kaur Jaswal > Quotes

“I saw it a few years ago in a bookshop but didn’t buy it.’ ‘I hate it when that happens. Book regret. You come across something and think, I don’t want that, and later, you’re obsessed with getting it and it’s no longer available.”
― Balli Kaur Jaswal, Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows

“You can separate the idiots from the bloody idiots.”
― Balli Kaur Jaswal, Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows

“You waste everything because you’ve always had everything.”
― Balli Kaur Jaswal, Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows

“In traditional Indian morality tales, wayward children were the primary cause of heart conditions, cancerous lumps, hair loss and other ailments in their aggrieved parents.”
― Balli Kaur Jaswal, Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows

“Why be with someone who’s making the journey? You could be with someone who has already arrived.”
― Balli Kaur Jaswal, Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows

“Perhaps passion and excitement were meant to be secondary to a stable adult life.”
― Balli Kaur Jaswal, Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows

“Out of all the opportunities Britain offered us, choice was the most important thing.”
― Balli Kaur Jaswal, Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows

“Let him find balance and moderation in all things; let him listen to himself and not the noise of others.”
― Balli Kaur Jaswal, Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows

“Fiery-eyed and indignant, they would pen their stories for the whole world to read.”
― Balli Kaur Jaswal, Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows

“You come across something and think, I don’t want that, and later, you’re obsessed with getting it and it’s no longer available.”
― Balli Kaur Jaswal, Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows

“It would be easier to be a criminal fairly prosecuted by the law than an Indian daughter who wronged her family. A crime would be punishable by a jail sentence of definite duration rather than this uncertain length of family guilt trips.”
― Balli Kaur Jaswal, Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows

“Please enjoy your health while you have it. Because once your body betrays you, no comfort in the world will make up for your loss.”
― Balli Kaur Jaswal, The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters

“People are sympathetic at first but when the illness drags on, they start avoiding you, like your bad luck is contagious.”
― Balli Kaur Jaswal, Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows

“she wondered why men needed all that space when their answers to everything were always ‘no’.”
― Balli Kaur Jaswal, Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows

“One pundit had asked her to visualize herself in the career she wanted while he chanted prayers to make her vision a reality. Her mind had gone blank, and this canvas of nothingness was the image sent up to the Gods.”
― Balli Kaur Jaswal, Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows

“You're not even trying to understand. You're just repeating everything I say.' 'REPEATING EVERYTHING YOU SAY?”
― Balli Kaur Jaswal, Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows

“I hate it when that happens. Book regret. You come across something and think, I don’t want that, and later, you’re obsessed with getting it and it’s no longer available.”
― Balli Kaur Jaswal, Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows

“The taste and the prickling of tiny bones were bad enough but fish had its own meaning in Ma's world. It was a punishment - not a punishment for me, but Ma's punishment for everything else. The stench of fish; the clumps of blood; the glassy eyes - they were all signs of Ma's frustration. Fish awakened our flat. It made us sit up straight and think about our actions.”
― Balli Kaur Jaswal, Sugarbread

“I’m educated, I’ve done my nursing degree, I’ve got a job – this is the next step.’ ‘It shouldn’t be a step. Acquiring a husband, that’s what you’re doing.”
― Balli Kaur Jaswal, Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows

“My beloved. Your body is an entire galaxy; your moles and dimples a sprinkling of stars. I am just a weary desert traveller, my lips parched and searching for refreshment. Each time I am ready to give up, I look up, and there you lay in the stretch of midnight skies. Your hair billows around you and your hands fall away from your chest, revealing your pale, round breasts. At their tips, your nipples point to greet my puckered lips. I kiss them tenderly and feel the shudder of sensation rock through your body, your world. Between your legs, a flower is moistening itself, its lips plump with anticipation. Your body is an entire galaxy of its own accord. I explore you with my lips, grateful for my thirst to be quenched and when I reach your forbidden garden, my thirst becomes your hunger. Your long legs are draped around my neck, your hips thrusting against my mouth. My lips become wet with your dew. I press them inside you and feel the throb of your blood pulsing into your most intimate places. How grateful I am to have my lips against yours in this way, to connect these blushing parts of ourselves together.”
― Balli Kaur Jaswal, Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows

“There’s no greater show of love and faith than traveling a long distance for somebody.”
― Balli Kaur Jaswal, The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters

“Based on one test, they behaved as if they had the authority to write every child's future.”
― Balli Kaur Jaswal, Inheritance

“Living was messy. These uniform flats, stacked on top of each other, were tidy solutions.”
― Balli Kaur Jaswal, Inheritance

“Everything overlaps in this city,” Ma said. “Do you see that? Everything merges together.” I did see it. Concrete pavements over grass, flats over hawker centres, Malay food over Indian food over Chinese food over McDonald’s. Leaves pointing towards the sky in every possible shade of green—jade; emerald; a deep sea green; a sickly yellowish-green. Beneath them, spotted branches spread in crooked lines across the sky. Behind them, buildings. Underneath those, the MRT snaked across the city. A city; an island; a state; a country. Everything overlapping.”
― Balli Kaur Jaswal, Sugarbread

“Why did she always torture herself like this? Sometimes she got carried away and imagined little moments of Maya's life as it would be. Mundane things like paying for groceries or replacing the batteries in her television remote control. The smaller the details, the harder it hit.”
― Balli Kaur Jaswal, Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows

“I am writing today to tell you that love cannot be manufactured. This should be the most basic knowledge to anybody who claims love as their business. We do not always choose who and how we love. In my case, we do not always love the people we are supposed to.”
― Balli Kaur Jaswal, Inheritance

“Kulwinder turned toward the temple and uttered a quick prayer in gratitude of pleasure. The sensation of contact, the anticipation of a kiss or brush of Sarab’s hand across her bare thigh – such moments were miniscule but they amounted to a lifetime of happiness.”
― Balli Kaur Jaswal, Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows

“She even dared to think that it was worth living the rest of her life for, this closeness with another human being.”
― Balli Kaur Jaswal, Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows

“The laughter that they shared filled the room, a shot of intoxicating warmth like the first hint of summer”
― Balli Kaur Jaswal, Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows

“I gave you all the happiness I couldn’t have. You loved your husband, your marriage. Good for you. I survived mine.”
― Balli Kaur Jaswal, Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows