Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors Quotes

“Ma’s pet peeve was how the Western world misunderstood the theory of karma. “I mean it’s the Bhagavad Gita they’re bastardizing. What is all this ‘karma’s a bitch’ nonsense!” Ma loved to say. The entire “what goes around comes around” thing was a backward view of karma. Karma was simply Sanskrit for action, and the theory was that your actions are the only thing under your control, as opposed to the fruits of your actions, which are not. And since actions always bear fruit, you were better off focusing your energy on your own actions, rather than worrying about the results you wanted them to produce.”
― Sonali Dev, Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors

“The fact that you have the things you have isn’t wrong. Not understanding what you have is.”
― Sonali Dev, Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors

“Deserve was such a strange word, throwing out both blame and accolades with equal mercilessness. Society’s skewed scale for assigning a value to human beings. How many times had he been judged and found lacking? Was there ever a way to measure what anyone deserved? Or was it just another way to pretend that the randomness of the universe made sense?”
― Sonali Dev, Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors

“The syntax of prejudice—threaded into conversation with the perfect pauses and facial expressions—was like ciphers and spy codes. The meaning clear to those it was meant for. To everyone else, it was harmless scribbles. Easy enough to deny.”
― Sonali Dev, Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors

“War is a violent thing but its purpose is often to protect your own, and to ultimately bring peace. Sometimes you have to go to war to move forward and past suffering, to get closer to our natural state as humans. That of equilibrium and well-being."
Trisha simply nodded. The only time Esha ever lectured was when she'd seen something and she was trying to tell you what she'd seen.
"When it's time to fight, it's okay to fight," Esha said. "Even if sometimes your biggest enemies may be hiding inside you. Not everyone who fights you is your enemy.”
― Sonali Dev, Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors

“She felt a little bit worse - and a little bit better - than she had when she got here. Maybe that was the true meaning of going home.”
― Sonali Dev, Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors

“Listen very carefully. Because I'm only going to lay this out for you once. I'm no longer the easy prey I once was and if you go up against me I will make sure you end up behind bars. You've fraudulently pocketed the money from the video. Our lawyers already have a criminal suit against you ready to go. Unless you're particularly keen on jail, you will leave my family alone, and you will withdraw the video and return all that money to the people you stole it from."
Julia opened her mouth, but Trisha held up her hand and she closed it. "And if you do one thing to harm DJ"- because suddenly Trisha was sure Julia had something on DJ; her nineties-Bollywood-plot theory didn't seem so farfetched- "I will make sure that every one of the families you've preyed on to make money off their tragedies gets together and sues your ass until every penny you've ever leeched is gone. Now get out of my office. Get out of my building- which by the way is private property. Soliciting business here is illegal. So the next time you think of setting foot here, know that I will have security throw you out on your cowardly, pathetic ass.”
― Sonali Dev, Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors

“Whatever the case, we want to change things around us. Because we want to matter, and we believe that our work makes us matter. The work isn't the end, it's the means for what we really want: to matter.”
― Sonali Dev, Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors

“You should smell the mangoes in India. They smell like sugar melting in the summer heat. How do these have no aroma at all?”
― Sonali Dev, Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors

“Funny how photographs become the form your memories take.”
― Sonali Dev, Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors

“If you don’t know whether you have feelings for someone or not, that means you don’t have feelings for them.”
― Sonali Dev, Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors

“This might baffle you, but despite not being a physician, I do have some pride. Although most certainly not enough to withstand the kind of beating you're capable of dealing it. The kind of beating you've repeatedly dealt it from the first time we've met. You're right, I value honesty, so I'll tell you that I make it a practice not to find women who insult me at every opportunity attractive."
Color flooded her cheeks and traveled down her neck. Finally, she stepped away from him, too, and found the back of a chair to clutch. She looked entirely devastated. Had no one ever denied her anything? He hated the hurt in her eyes. But it was done now.
"How is telling you I'm attracted to you an insult?"
He pressed the back of his hand into his forehead. It made him feel like a drama queen in some sort of musical farce. Which this had to be. "Telling me how unworthy I am of your attraction, that's the insulting part. And, no, that's not all it is. Even if you hadn't told me at every opportunity how inferior to you I am... all I do is cook... every assumption you've made about me is insulting. Culinary school is definitely college. And Le Cordon Bleu is one of the most competitive institutions in the world. The fact that that's so wholly incomprehensible to you... that's the insulting part. And it wasn't thrown in my overly privileged lap either. I had to work my bottom off to make it in."
Ammaji had sold her dowry jewels to pay for his application, something her family would have thrown her out on the street for had they found out.
Trisha squared her shoulders, the devastation draining fast from her face, leaving behind the self-possession he was so much more used to. And the speed with which she gathered herself shook something inside him. "I might not do what you see as important work, but I work hard at being a decent human being, and I would need anyone I'm with to be that first and foremost. Even if I didn't find snobbery in general incredibly unattractive, I would never go anywhere near a person as self-absorbed and arrogant as you, Dr. Raje. I would have to be insane to subject myself to your view of me and the world."
"Wow." She was panting, or maybe it was him. He couldn't be sure.
"You wanted honesty. I'm sorry if I hurt you."
She cleared her throat. "I'm surprised you think someone as... as... self-absorbed and arrogant as me is even capable of being hurt.”
― Sonali Dev, Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors

“A beast of a yellow Porsche stood to one side of the sweeping driveway. "You don't own that thing, do you?" Where was the adorable pink Beetle?
"No, I just stole it to drive you to the city in the style to which you're accustomed."
She turned around and glared at him. "Don't be tasteless. That's not what I meant.”
― Sonali Dev, Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors

“Why were men such complicated beasts anyway? Relationships felt like full-time babysitting jobs crossed with high-level code cracking.”
― Sonali Dev, Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors

“The thing about human beings is that they heal,” Ma said. “We’re nature’s creations, we regenerate like the seasons. We just need someone to let us know that we’re worthy of healing.”
― Sonali Dev, Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors

“There was something about Paris that made you feel you could forget who you were.”
― Sonali Dev, Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors

“Is it always so sensitive?"
He took moments to answer as though it cost him an effort. "It's never been before." Lifting her fingers, he kissed them, and then spoke against them. "It's your hands, they're magic."
Heat rose in her cheeks. "I can't believe I actually asked you if you knew what my hands were worth."
There it was again, that laugh. Deep and husky and perfect. "If only I'd known.”
― Sonali Dev, Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors

“Do you know why I chose neurosurgery, sir? Because the mission we organized to perform those surgeries couldn't help the patients with neurogenic blindness. So this isn't one case- it's the reason I became a doctor."
And no one was going to keep her from going into that OR.”
― Sonali Dev, Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors

“Your brother cooks because he wants to comfort people, to show them the pleasure their bodies are capable of experiencing, to make them pause and savor their own existence as they fly through life. You can see it in his face every time someone eats his food... And me? I do it because I want to save lives, take away suffering. Whatever the case, we want to change things around us. Because we want to matter, and we believe that our work makes us matter. The work isn't the end, it's the means for what we really want: to matter.”
― Sonali Dev, Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors

“Would it be all right to top the crab kachoris with date chutney foam, so the hors d'oeuvre could be circulated without a mess? Should the chicken be served over a bed of pulav or plated individually in bowls?”
― Sonali Dev, Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors

“Leaning over the tray he inhaled deeply, letting the steam-laden aroma flood all the way through him. The soft green clouds with the most delicate golden crusts smelled as perfect as they looked. Pistachio with a hint of saffron. was there even such a thing as a hint of saffron? It was the loudest understated spice, like a soft-spoken person you couldn't stop listening to. Like the hidden lilts inside a well-held aria. Like the beauty within making what someone looked like on the outside meaningless, slowly, one encounter at a time. No matter how subtle you tried to make it, saffron always shone through, it became the soul of your preparation.
He nodded at Rajesh, who stood at the ready with the cashews DJ had candied to perfection with butter and brown sugar. He started to arrange three at the center of each ramekin in a clover of paisleys, then tucked a sugarwork swirl next to it to top things off just so.”
― Sonali Dev, Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors

“But even as she said it, she knew it would make no difference. Julia didn’t understand how things like love and friendship worked.”
― Sonali Dev, Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors

“the healing itself, the changing, that you can only do yourself. No one else can do that for you.”
― Sonali Dev, Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors

“You also have to be brave to accept what you have, even if you’re terrified of losing it.”
― Sonali Dev, Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors

“He deserved his peace wherever he got it.”
― Sonali Dev, Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors

“Undressing a secret makes it naked and takes away its power.”
― Sonali Dev, Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors

“do it because I want to save lives, take away suffering. Whatever the case, we want to change things around us. Because we want to matter, and we believe that our work makes us matter. The work isn’t the end, it’s the means for what we really want: to matter.”
― Sonali Dev, Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors

“Rage and sadness, hot and pure, twisted in his gut, turning into acid he could taste. Who would have known you could taste your feelings?”
― Sonali Dev, Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors

“Kishori Amonkar belting out her agony in raga Durbari.”
― Sonali Dev, Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors

“okra, spinach, and cilantro in little heaps across the countertop, each shade of green as distinct as each vegetable’s identity.”
― Sonali Dev, Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors