Natasha > Natasha's Quotes

“Whether you think you can, or you think you can't--you're right.”
― Henry Ford

“When I was about eight, I decided that the most wonderful thing, next to a human being, was a book.”
― Margaret Walker

“Quotation, n: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

“Once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts forever.”
― Antony Day, The Velveteen Rabbit or How Toys Become Real

“Sometimes you will hear leaders say, “I’m the only person who can hold this nation together.” If that’s true then that leader has truly failed to build their nation.’ That”
― Tim Marshall, Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You Need to Know About Global Politics

“Why do you think your values would work in a culture you don’t understand?”
― Tim Marshall, Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You Need to Know About Global Politics

“Analysts often write about the need for certain cultures not to lose face, or ever be seen to back down, but this is not just a problem in the Arab or East Asian cultures—it is a human problem expressed in different ways.”
― Tim Marshall, Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World

“All great nations spend peacetime preparing for the day war breaks out.”
― Tim Marshall, Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You Need to Know About Global Politics

“The countries of northern Europe have been richer than those of the south for several centuries. The north industrialised earlier than the south and so has been more economically successful.”
― Tim Marshall, Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You Need to Know About Global Politics

“Look again at the standard Mercator map and you see that Greenland appears to be the same size as Africa, and yet Africa is actually fourteen times the size of Greenland! You could fit the USA, Greenland, India, China, Spain, France, Germany and the UK into Africa and still have room for most of Eastern Europe. We know Africa is a massive land mass, but the maps rarely tell us how massive.”
― Tim Marshall, Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You Need to Know About Global Politics

“THE MIDDLE OF WHAT? EAST OF WHERE? THE REGION’S VERY name is based on a European view of the world, and it is a European view of the region that shaped it. The Europeans used ink to draw lines on maps: they were lines that did not exist in reality and created some of the most artificial borders the world has seen. An attempt is now being made to redraw them in blood.”
― Tim Marshall, Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You Need to Know About Global Politics

“As we’ve seen, the Chinese are everywhere, they mean business and they are now every bit as involved across the continent as the Europeans and Americans. About a third of China’s oil imports come from Africa, which – along with the precious metals to be found in many African countries – means they have arrived, and will stay. European and American oil companies and big multinationals are still far more heavily involved in Africa, but China is quickly catching up.”
― Tim Marshall, Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You Need to Know About Global Politics

“It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma,” but few go on to complete the sentence, which ends “but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.”
― Tim Marshall, Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World

“India and Pakistan can agree on one thing: neither wants the other one around.”
― Tim Marshall, Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You Need to Know About Global Politics

“I guess everyone has a bird urge when they look down heights, a desire to jump, without wing or buoyant sail. Fear of heights is fear of a desire to jump.”
― Amruta Patil, Kari

“On my bedside table is a snow globe with a winterscape inside.
Church, park bench, girl standing shin-deep in snow. Tip the snow globe over and a blizzard of slow snow falls over church and bench and girl. What is it about snow globes that makes them fascinating and terrifying at once?

My heart lurches at the thought of the snow-globe girl waiting endlessly, with only the hope of a new snow blizzard to settle on her mantle when the next person tips her snow-globe world over. Not a gust of breeze may ruffle her skirt, not a bird may perch atop the steeple. The only way out of a snow globe is by shattering the glass dome that is its sky.”
― Amruta Patil, Kari

“There are settling girls, and there are unsettling girls. The ones who seem to have it in them to be flyers are the ones who want to snuggle into settling. The ones who look as settled as old housedogs want to twist their way into flying. Necessarily, you must be defensive about being a settling sort of girl.”
― Amruta Patil, Kari

“The Airlines lady who travels in the same compartment as us day after day, has bruises on her arms and face today and her eyes keep welling, but no one asks her why. Our eyes dart towards her, but we go back to travelling in too much proximity. Two inches from one another and expressionless.”
― Amruta Patil, Kari

“I wait to watch their train leave just as I waited to watch their train pull in. I wait till they have disappeared. Until the next train pulls in. I have temporarily regressed to being a guilt ridden and miserable child.”
― Amruta Patil, Kari

“Can palmists read the grooves on a formaldehyde baby’s palm?”
― Amruta Patil, Kari

“Smog city looks even more anaemic in the sun. Left to itself long enough, everything in the world withers, wastes, fades away to brown and grey. Tarpaulin and trash. Cinders and ash. Vegetables turn to potty. Red curtains colourless, add to this, streams of women and women, like roots and slaves, in equally tired colours. We are scared of too much colour.”
― Amruta Patil, Kari

“Whatever love laws have to be broken, the first few seconds suffice. After that everything is a matter of time and incident.”
― Amruta Patil, Kari

“When I stopped waiting for return gifts from the world, I found my appetite. You couldn't tell from looking at my plate, but I got the biggest appetite you'll know. Food is the least of it.”
― Amruta Patil, Eat the Sky, Drink the Ocean

“How did I acquire those habits? Perhaps that's what happens during he forging of a relationship: if nothing else, you adopt some of the other person's habits. It makes you feel those adoptions, make him one of you.

Have you picked up habits from me? Do you draw circles with a finger on your thali when you have finished eating? Do you, every once in a while, squeeze shaving cream on to your toothbrush? DO you sleep with a knee drawn up to you, the bedclothes kicked away? Do you fold the newspaper neatly and put it where you found it, when you are done?

Yesterday, when a cobalt blue smudge of wall ended up on my hand, I wiped on my trouser without thinking.”
― Sachin Kundalkar, Cobalt Blue

“Some people are born in the mountains, while others are born by the sea. Some people are happy to live in the place they were born, while others must make a journey to reach the climate in which they can flourish and grow. Between the ocean and the mountains is a wild forest. That is where I want to make my home.”
― Maia Kobabe, Gender Queer: A Memoir

“An officer may have many subordinates to do these jobs, but a leader must be able to fend for himself or herself. I wholeheartedly agree with this philosophy. It enables an officer to lead from the front if the need arises and helps instil a sense of respect within the rank and file.”
― Manjari Jaruhar, Madam Sir: The Story of Bihar’s First Woman IPS Officer

“The IPS training made me acutely aware of the gaps in my upbriniging. Why do we not encourage our girls to take up a sport, to build muscle, to build stamina? Why do we protect them from the outdoors for fear of “ruining” their complexion? Sure a strong body and fit mind are more to be coveted than fair skin.”
― Manjari Jaruhar, Madam Sir: The Story of Bihar’s First Woman IPS Officer

“The Bhagalpur blinding showed me how important it is in the police to follow the correct path and not resort to extra constitutional ways. Many officers feel that encounters are the only way to deal with hardened criminals, but the Bhagalpur incidents taught me a salutary lesson that, although such behaviour might bring quick results and commendations in the short term, it invariably leads you down a dangerous path.”
― Manjari Jaruhar, Madam Sir: The Story of Bihar’s First Woman IPS Officer

“Often the girls would be unhappy with the police uniform. ‘why should we wear the men’s uniform, Maam, ? Why can’t we have something more comfortable, more suitable for us?”
It is true that the uniform is designed for a man. Yet, I feel that there should not be any difference in uniform because to me the uniform is the big equaliser. “the moment we start wearing a different uniform, others will perceive us differently,’ I would tell the girls. When you are breaking into a male bastion, you must first blend in, before standing out. I hope that one day there will be so many women IPS officers that they will stop being an aberration.”
― Manjari Jaruhar, Madam Sir: The Story of Bihar’s First Woman IPS Officer

“I started with the first note, sa. On the first day, to my dismay, Dhondutai made me sing only the base note- the tonal pillar of Indian music which remains unchanged, constant, reliable, and stoically oblivious to the whims and fancies of the other notes. It is the foundation, the first and last note, the point at which the circle begins and ends. Within the boundaries of sa, one can play out all of life's dramas and moods. But every time one gets back to it, there is a sense of closure- like coming home after a long and exciting journey.”
― Namita Devidayal, The Music Room