Kiran Desai Quotes

In India, if you are from the elite, dogs are extremely important. The breed of the dog indicates your wealth, that you are westernized. The cook, another human being, is on a much lower level than your dog. You see this all the time.

- Kiran Desai

I love Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, Flannery O'Connor. I read a lot of American writers.

- Kiran Desai

If you write a lovely story about India, you're criticized for selling an exotic version of India. And if you write critically about India, you're seen as portraying it in a negative light - it also seems to be a popular way to present India, sort of mangoes and beggars.

- Kiran Desai

I'm always in the kitchen, cooking and experimenting - I love it. And every now and then I think, 'I should write a cookbook' or, 'I should write for food magazines.' And then I get drawn back to writing fiction again.

- Kiran Desai

The Indian diaspora is a wonderful place to write from, and I am lucky to be part of it.

- Kiran Desai

The publishing world is very timid. Readers are much braver.

- Kiran Desai

When I was growing up the publishing world seemed so far away. When my mother wrote a book, she would look up the address of publishers on the backs of the books she owned and send off her manuscript.

- Kiran Desai

We think of immigration as a Western issue but, of course, it isn't.

- Kiran Desai

When you write on your own, you can write the extremes. No one else is watching and you can really go as far as you need to.

- Kiran Desai

I feel as comfortable anywhere as I feel uncomfortable anywhere.

- Kiran Desai

New York is a lovely city. It is an easy city to go back to and an easy city to leave. Every time I go there I immediately make travel plans.

- Kiran Desai

I do think that the modern India does belong to writers who are living in India.

- Kiran Desai

I don't think you can write according to a set of rules and laws; every writer is so different.

- Kiran Desai