The Inheritance of Loss Quotes

“But Biju went to Jackson Heights, and from a store like a hangar he bought: a TV and VCR, a camera, sunglasses, baseball caps that said "NYC" and "Yankees" and "I Like My Beer Cold and My Women Hot," a digital two-time clock and radio and cassette player, waterproof watches, calculators, an electric razor, a toaster oven, a winter coat, nylon sweaters, polyester-cotton-blend shirts, a polyurethane quilt, a rain jacket, a folding umbrella, suede shoes, a leather wallet, a Japanese-made heater, a set of sharp knives, a hot water bottle, Fixodent, saffron, cashews and raisins, aftershave, T-shirts with "I love NY" and "Born in the USA" picked out in shiny stones, whiskey, and, after a moment of hesitation, a bottle of perfume called Windsong . . . who was that for? He didn’t yet know her face.”
― Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss

“The house didn’t match Gyan’s talk, his English, his looks, his clothes, or his schooling. It didn’t match his future. Every single thing his family had was going into him and it took ten of them to live like this to produce a boy, combed, educated, their best bet in the big world. Sisters’ marriages, younger brother’s studies, grandmother’s teeth—all on hold, silenced, until he left, strove, sent something back.”
― Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss

“." Magpie things gleaned from a romantic version of the West and a fanciful version of the East that contained power enough to maintain dignity across the rotten offences between nations.”
― Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss

“What was a country but the idea of it? She thought of India as a concept, a hope, or a desire. How often could you attack it before it crumbled? To undo something took practice; it was a dark art and they were perfecting it.”
― Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss

“It happened all the time; ten years passed, fifteen, the telegram arrived, or the phone call, the parent was gone and the child was too late. Or they returned and found they’d missed the entire last quarter of a lifetime, their parents like photograph negatives. And there were worse tragedies. After the initial excitement was over, it often became obvious that the love was gone; for affection was only a habit after all, and people, they forgot, or they became accustomed to its absence. They returned and found just the facade; it had been eaten from inside, like Cho Oyu being gouged by termites from within.”
― Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss

“They were no longer relevant to each other’s lives except for the hope that they would be relevant.”
― Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss

“They should kick the bastards back to Nepal," continued Mr. Iype. "Bangladeshis to Bangladesh, Afghans to Afghanistan, all Muslims to Pakistan, Tibetans, Bhutanese, why are they sitting in our country?" "Why are we sitting here?" "This country is different," he said without shame. "Without us what would they do?”
― Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss

“This granddaughter whom he didn’t hate was perhaps the only miracle fate had thrown his way.
.”
― Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss

“existence. When you build on lies, you build strong and solid. It was the truth that undid you. He couldn’t knock down the lies or else the past would crumble, and therefore the present. . . . But he now acquiesced to something in the past that had survived, returned, that might, without his paying too much attention, redeem him—”
― Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss

“But he couldn’t manage to keep this up. He now pleaded directly with the judge: "We’re friends, aren’t we? "Aren’t we? Aren’t we friends?" "Time passes, things change," said the judge, feeling claustrophobia and embarrassment. "But what is in the past remains unchanged, doesn’t it?" "I think it does change. The present changes the past. Looking back you do not find what you left behind, Bose." The judge knew that he would never communicate with Bose again.”
― Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss

“The judge walked into the kitchen and found two green chilis looking ridiculous in a tin cup on a wooden stand that read "Best Potato Exhibit 1933." Nothing else.”
― Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss

“Then the judge burst out, despite himself: "YES! YES! YES! They were bad. They were part of it. And we were part of the problem, Bose, exactly as much as you could argue that we were part of the solution.”
― Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss

“Again they went to court and again they would go to court with their unshakable belief in the system of justice. Again they lost. Again they would lose. The man with the white curly wig and a dark face covered in powder, bringing down his hammer, always against the native, in a world that was still colonial.”
― Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss

“But profit could only be harvested in the gap between nations, working one against the other. They were damning the third world to being third-world.”
― Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss

“The judge was pained by the scene of them before they’d even properly embarked on the evening—two white-haired Fitzbillies in the corner of the club, water-stained durries, the grimacing head of a stuffed bear slipping low, half the stuffing fallen out. Wasps lived in the creature’s teeth, and moths lived in its fur, which also fooled some ticks that had burrowed in, confident of finding blood, and died of hunger.”
― Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss

“crowd. By their manner, dress, and accent, they tried to convey to the officials that they were a preselected, numerically restricted, perfect-for-foreign-travel group, skilled in the use of knife and fork, no loud burping, no getting up on the toilet seat to squat as many of the village women were doing at just this moment never having seen the sight of such a toilet before, pouring water from on high to clean their bottoms and flooding the floor with bits of soggy shit.”
― Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss

“What would he do with her? She without enterprise, unable to entertain herself, made of nothing, yet with a disruptive presence.”
― Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss

“Ghoulishly sugared in sweet candy pigment, he clamped down on her, tussled her to the floor, and as more of that perfect rose complexion, blasted into a million motes, came filtering down, in a dense frustration of lust and fury— penis uncoiling, mottled purple-black as if with rage, blundering, uncovering the chute he had heard rumor of—he stuffed his way ungracefully into her. An aging uncle, wizened bird man in dhoti and spectacles, watching through a crack in the wall outside, felt his own lust ripen and—pop—it sent him hopping about the courtyard.”
― Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss

“He thought of how often he wished he might line up at the American embassy or the British, and leave. "Listen Momo," he had said to a delighted Sai, "let’s go to Australia." Fly away, bye-bye, ta-ta. Free from history. Free from family demands and the built-up debt of centuries. The patriotism was false, he suddenly felt as he marched; it was surely just frustration—the leaders harnessing the natural irritations and disdain of adolescence for cynical ends; for their own hope in attaining the same power as government officials held now, the same ability to award local businessmen deals in exchange for bribes, for the ability to give jobs to their relatives, places to their children in schools, cooking gas connections. . . .”
― Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss

“wondered, Should humans conquer the mountain or should they wish for the mountain to possess them? Sherpas went up and down, ten times, fifteen times in some cases, without glory, without claim of ownership, and there were those who said it was sacred and shouldn’t be sullied at all.”
― Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss

“muscle. "What’s for PUDS?" Lola, when she said this in England, had been unsettled to find that the English didn’t understand. . . . Even Pixie had pretended to be bewildered. . . . But here they comprehended perfectly, and Kesang lugged out a weighty pudding that united via brandy its fraternity of fruit and nut, and they made the pudding holy with a sanctifying crown of brandy flame.”
― Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss

“But here there were Indians eating beef. Indian bankers. Chomp chomp. He fixed them with a concentrated look of meaning as he cleared the plates. They saw it. They knew. He knew. They knew he knew. They pretended they didn’t know he knew. They”
― Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss

“Former slaves and natives. Eskimos and Hiroshima people, Amazonian Indians and Chiapas Indians and Chilean Indians and American Indians and Indian Indians. Australian aborigines, Guatemalans and Colombians and Brazilians and Argentineans, Nigerians, Burmese, Angolans, Peruvians, Ecuadorians, Bolivians, Afghans, Cambodians, Rwan-dans, Filipinos, Indonesians, Liberians, Borneoans, Papua New Guineans, South Africans, Iraqis, Iranians, Turks, Armenians, Palestinians, French Guyanese, Dutch Guyanese, Surinamese, Sierra Leonese, Malagasys, Senegalese, Maldivians, Sri Lankans, Malaysians, Kenyans, Panamanians, Mexicans, Haitians, Dominicans, Costa Ricans, Congoans, Mauritanians, Marshall Islanders, Tahitians, Gabonese, Beninese, Malians, Jamaicans, Botswanans, Burundians, Sudanese, Eritreans, Uruguayans, Nicaraguans, Ugandans, Ivory Coastians, Zambians, Guinea-Bissauans, Cameroonians, Laotians, Zaireans coming at you screaming colonialism, screaming slavery, screaming mining companies screaming banana companies oil companies screaming CIA spy among the missionaries screaming it was Kissinger who killed their father and why don’t you forgive third-world debt; Lumumba, they shouted, and Allende; on the other side, Pinochet, they said, Mobutu; contaminated milk from Nestle, they said; Agent Orange; dirty dealings by Xerox. World Bank, UN, IMF, everything run by white people. Every day in the papers another thing! Nestle and Xerox were fine upstanding companies, the backbone of the economy, and Kissinger was at least a patriot. The United States was a young country built on the finest principles, and how could it possibly owe so many bills? Enough was enough. Business was business. Your bread might as well be left unbuttered were the butter to be spread so thin. The fittest one wins and gets the butter.”
― Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss

“Well, he wanted it. Everyone wanted it whether you liked it or you hated it. The more you hated it sometimes, the more you wanted it. This they didn’t understand.”
― Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss

“This was what happened, he had learned by now. You lived intensely with others, only to have them disappear overnight, since the shadow class was condemned to movement. The men left for other jobs, towns, got deported, returned home, changed names. Sometimes someone came popping around a corner again, or on the subway, then they vanished again.

(Page 109).”
― Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss

“The more pampered you are the more pampered you will be the more presents you receive the more presents you will get the more presents you receive the more you are admired the more you will be admired the more you are admired the more presents you will get the more pampered you will be—

(Page 102).”
― Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss

“She sometimes thought herself pretty, but as she began to make a proper investigation, she found it was a changeable thing, beauty. No sooner did she locate it than it slipped from her grasp; instead of disciplining it, she was unable to refrain from exploiting its flexibility. She stuck her tongue out at herself and rolled her eyes, then smiled beguilingly. She transformed her expression from demon to queen. When she brushed her teeth, she noticed her breasts jiggle like two jellies being rushed to the table. She lowered her mouth to taste the flesh and found it both firm and yielding. This plumpness jiggliness firmness softness, all coupled together in an unlikely manner, must surely give her a certain amount of bartering power?”
― Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss

“Everyone knows," said the cook. "Coastal people eat fish and see how much cleverer they are, Bengalis, Malayalis, Tamils. Inland they eat too much grain, and it slows the digestion—especially millet—forms a big heavy ball. The blood goes to the stomach and not to the head. Nepalis make good soldiers, coolies, but they are not so bright at their studies. Not their fault, poor things.”
― Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss

“And in puddings there is nobody to beat him. He can make a new pudding for each day of the year." "What can he make?" "Bananafritterpineapplefritterapplefritterapplesurpriseapplecharlotteapplebettybreadandbutterjamtartcaramelcustardtipsypudding Rumtumpuddingjamrolypolygingersteamdatepuddinglemonpancakeegg custardorangecustardcoffeecustardstrawberrycustardtriflebakedalaskamangosouff lélemonsoufflécoffeesouffléchocolatesoufflégooseberrysouffléhotchocolatepuddi ngcoldcoffeepuddingcoconutpuddingmilkpuddingrumbabarumcakebrandysnappe arstewguavastewplumstewapplestewpeachstewapricotstewmangopiechocolatetart appletartgooseberrytartlemontartjamtartmarmaladetartbebincafioatingislandpinea ppleupsidedownappleupsidedowngooseberryupsidedownplumupsidedownpeachu psidedownraisinupsidedown—" "All right. All right.”
― Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss

“One thing was always missing, though, the proof of the pudding, the prize of the action, the manliness in manhood, the partridge for the pot, because he returned with— Nothing! He was a terrible shot.”
― Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss