Nectar in a Sieve Quotes

“For where shall a man turn who has no money? Where can he go? Wide, wide world, but as narrow as the coins in your hand. Like a tethered goat, so far and no farther. Only money can make the rope stretch, only money.”
― Kamala Markandaya, Nectar in a Sieve

“To those who live by the land there must always come times of hardship, of fear and of hunger, even as there are years of plenty. This is one of the truths of our existence as those who live by the land know: that sometimes we eat and sometimes we starve. We live by our labours fromone harvest to the next, there is no certain telling whether we shall be able to feed ourselves and our children, and if bad times are prolonged we know we must see the weak surrender their lives and this fact, too, is within our experience. In our lives there is no margin for misfortune.”
― Kamala Markandaya, Nectar in a Sieve

“Well, and what if we give in to our troubles at every step! We would be pitiable creatures indeed to be so weak, for is not a man's spirit given to him to rise above his misfortunes? As for our wants, they are many and unfilled, for who is so rich or compassionate as to supply them? Want is our companion from birth to death, familiar as the seasons or the earth, varying only in degree. What profit to bewail that which has always been and cannot change?”
― Kamala Markandaya, Nectar in a Sieve

“Sometimes at night I think that my husband is with me again, coming gently through the mists, and we are tranquil together. Then the morning comes, the wavering grey turns to gold, there is stirring within me as the sleepers awake, and he softly departs.”
― Kamala Markandaya, Nectar in a Sieve

“We live by our labors from one harvest to the next, there is no certain telling whether we shall be able to feed ourselves and our children, and if bad times are prolonged we know we must see the weak surrender their lives and this fact, too, is within our experience. In our lives there is no margin for misfortune.”
― Kamala Markandaya, Nectar in a Sieve

“You must cry out if you want help. It is no use whatsoever to suffer in silence. Who will succour the drowning man if he does not clamour for his life?”
― Kamala Markandaya, Nectar in a Sieve

“How quickly children grow! They are infants -- you look away a minute and in that time they have left their babyhood behind.”
― Kamala Markandaya, Nectar in a Sieve

“The truth is unpalatable.”
― Kamala Markandaya, Nectar in a Sieve

“We had for so long accepted her obedience to our will that when it ceased to be given naturally, it came as a considerable chock; yet there was no option but to accept the change, strange and bewildering as it was, for obedience cannot be extorted.”
― Kamala Markandaya, Nectar in a Sieve

“That is all you can think of: what people will say! One goes from one end of the world to the other to hear the same story. Does it matter what people say?”
― Kamala Markandaya, Nectar in a Sieve

“She was no longer a child, to be cowed or forced into submission, but a grown woman with a definite purpose and an invincible determination.”
― Kamala Markandaya, Nectar in a Sieve

“There is a rare gentleness in you, the sweeter for its brief appearances.”
― Kamala Markandaya, Nectar in a Sieve

“He sighed impatently. 'You simplify everything, being without understanding. Your views are so limited it is impossible to explain to you.' 'Limited, yes,' I agreed. Yet not wholly without understanding. Our ways are not your ways.”
― Kamala Markandaya, Nectar in a Sieve

“They may live in our midst but I can never accept them, for they lay their hands upon us and we are all turned from tilling to barter, and hoard our silver since we cannot spend it, and see our children go without food that their children gorge, and it is only in the hope that one day things will be as they were that we have done these things. Now that they have gone let us forget them and return to our ways."
"Foolish woman," Nathan said. "There is no going back.”
― Kamala Markandaya, Nectar in a Sieve

“agile”
― Kamala Markandaya, Nectar in a Sieve

“afflicted”
― Kamala Markandaya, Nectar in a Sieve

“bemoan”
― Kamala Markandaya, Nectar in a Sieve

“The sowing of seed disciplines the body and the sprouting of the seed uplifts the spirit, but there is nothing to equal the rich satisfaction of a gathered harvest, when the grain is set before you in shining mounds and your hands are whitened with the dust of the good rice; or the very act of measuring -- of filling the measure, and topping it with a peak, careless of its height because you can afford to be, and also because you know in your prudence that the grains will see to it that you are not too generous, and slip and tumble down the sides of the measure if that peak be too tall. So many handfuls to one measure, so many measures to one sack; one after the other the sacks are filled and put away, with rejoicing and thankfulness.”
― Kamala Markandaya, Nectar in a Sieve

“Troubles,' he said. 'We all have them.”
― Kamala Markandaya, Nectar in a Sieve