{"author":"Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni","author_id":"Chitra+Banerjee+Divakaruni","total_quotes":46,"quotes":[{"text":"For men, the softer emotions are always intertwined with power and pride. That was why Karna waited for me to plead with him though he could have stopped my suffering with a single world. That was why he turned on me when I refused to ask for his pity. That was why he incited Dussasan to an action that was against the code of honor by which he lived his life. He knew he would regret it—in his fierce smile there had already been a glint of pain.But was a woman's heart any purer, in the end?That was the final truth I learned. All this time I'd thought myself better than my father, better than all those men who inflicted harm on a thousand innocents in order to punish the one man who had wronged them. I'd thought myself above the cravings that drove him. But I, too, was tainted with them, vengeance encoded into my blood. When the moment came I couldn't resist it, no more than a dog can resist chewing a bone that, splintering, makes his mouth bleed.Already I was storing these lessons inside me. I would use them over the long years of exile to gain what I wanted, no matter what its price.But Krishna, the slippery one, the one who had offered me a different solace, Krishna with his disappointed eyes—what was the lesson he'd tried to teach?","author":"Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni","tags":["lessons","men","power","pride","women"],"id":20438,"author_id":"Chitra+Banerjee+Divakaruni"},{"text":"I've been interested in dreams myself for a long time, and it's a big part of the Indian tradition, especially where I was brought up in Calcutta in my family, which is quite traditional.","author":"Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni","tags":["family","time","myself "],"id":27203,"author_id":"Chitra+Banerjee+Divakaruni"},{"text":"She lifts her eyes, and there is Death in the corner, but not like a king with his iron crown, as the epics claimed. Why, it is a giant brush loaded with white paint. It descends upon her with gentle suddenness, obliterating the shape of the world.","author":"Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni","tags":["fiction","immigrant-fiction","india","indian","indian-american","mothers-and-daughters","novel"],"id":34917,"author_id":"Chitra+Banerjee+Divakaruni"},{"text":"India lends itself well to fictionalization, but ultimately, it all depends on the writer's imagination.","author":"Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni","tags":["india","well","writer "],"id":35934,"author_id":"Chitra+Banerjee+Divakaruni"},{"text":"After the fire, when I'd tried to express my gratitude for their kindness to our customers, they'd been awkward, uncomfortable. My father had had to explain to me that giving thanks is not a common practice in India.'Then how do you know if people appreciated what you did?' I'd asked.'Do you really need to know?' my father had asked back.","author":"Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni","tags":["gratitude","selflessness"],"id":37838,"author_id":"Chitra+Banerjee+Divakaruni"},{"text":"Strong women, when respected, make the whole society stronger. One must be careful with such rapid changes, though, and make an effort to preserve, at the same time, the positive traditions of Indian culture.","author":"Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni","tags":["positive","women","culture "],"id":57058,"author_id":"Chitra+Banerjee+Divakaruni"},{"text":"It feels as though it were just yesterday Grandfather exited my life like a bullet, leaving a bleeding hole behind.","author":"Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni","tags":["9-11","drama","family-relationships","immigration","india","literary-fiction","suspense"],"id":63780,"author_id":"Chitra+Banerjee+Divakaruni"},{"text":"Asif Ali maneuvers the gleaming Mercedes down the labyrinthine lanes of Old Kolkata with consummate skill, but his passengers do not notice how smoothly he avoids potholes, cows and beggars, how skilfully he sails through aging yellow lights to get the Bose family to their destination on time. This disappoints Asif only a little. In his six years of chauffeuring the rich and callous, he has realized that, to them, servants are invisible.","author":"Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni","tags":["drama","family-relationships","immigrant-experience","india","literary-fiction","suspense","usa"],"id":67794,"author_id":"Chitra+Banerjee+Divakaruni"},{"text":"No, Ashok. Love is not a tap. It flows and flows like blood from a wound, and you can die of it.","author":"Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni","tags":["heartbreak","love","metaphoric"],"id":69731,"author_id":"Chitra+Banerjee+Divakaruni"},{"text":"What is the nature of life?Life is lines of dominoes falling.One thing leads to another, and then another, just like you'd planned. But suddenly a Domino gets skewed, events change direction, people dig in their heels, and you're faced with a situation that you didn't see coming, you who thought you were so clever.","author":"Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni","tags":["book-clubs","divakaruni","fiction","immigrant-fiction","indian-american","love","mothers-and-daughters","novel","relationships","women-s-books"],"id":77896,"author_id":"Chitra+Banerjee+Divakaruni"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":46,"pages":5,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}