Saadat Hasan Manto Quotes & Sayings

I wondered why people consider escapism so bad, even the escapism on display right then. At first it might appear unseemly, but in the end its lack of pretension gives it its own sort of beauty. — Saadat Hasan Manto

The field that cannot feed even its tiller Burn down every stalk that stands on it. — Saadat Hasan Manto

But love, whether in Multan or on Siberia's icy tundra, whether in the winter or the summer, whether among the rich or the poor, whether among the beautiful or the ugly, whether among the crude or refined, love is always just love. There's no difference. — Saadat Hasan Manto

If you cannot bear these stories then the society is unbearable. Who am I to remove the clothes of this society, which itself is naked. I don't even try to cover it, because it is not my job, that's the job of dressmakers. — Saadat Hasan Manto

His last years were beset with financial troubles; he drank heavily; he wrote to Chughtai on more than one occasion, pleading with her to find a way for him to come back to India. She was surprised to learn that far from large protests and signed declarations on his behalf, many in Pakistan felt he deserved to be punished. He died on January 18, 1955 in Lahore at the age of forty two. — Saadat Hasan Manto

For me, remembrance of things past has always been a waste of time, and what's the point of tears? I don't know. I've always been focussed on today. Yesterday and tomorrow hold no interest for me. What had to happen, did, and what will happen, will. — Saadat Hasan Manto

If you find my stories dirty, the society you are living in is dirty. With my stories, I only expose the truth — Saadat Hasan Manto

thought a glass of lassi would be refreshing. In the shop I noticed that the fan was on, but turned away from both customers and the owner. I was curious and asked why it was so. The owner glared at me and said: 'Can't you see?' I looked. The fan was pointed in the direction of a poster of our great leader, Muhammad Ali Jinnah. I shouted, 'Pakistan Zindabad!' and left without the lassi. In front of a shop, a man — Saadat Hasan Manto

Manto had earlier been prosecuted in Lahore for obscenity, and one of the words alleged to have been obscene was, breasts — Saadat Hasan Manto

Some people kiss as if they were eating watermelon — Saadat Hasan Manto

When Hamid dropped Lata off at her house at nine that night, he felt hollow. The touch of her soft body was sheared from him like bark from a tree, and he spent the entire night tossing and turning. — Saadat Hasan Manto

Literature and film in my opinion are like saloons where bottles have no labels. I want to taste each one myself and figure out which is what. If I'm denied this by labelling, then my entertainment is considerably lessened. — Saadat Hasan Manto

He catches the thieves that lie in the hearts of their pure and respectable wives. And he compares them to the purity in the heart of a whore in a brothel. — Saadat Hasan Manto

A man remains a man no matter how poor his conduct. A woman, even if she were to deviate for one instance, from the role given to her by men, is branded a whore. She is viewed with lust and contempt. Society closes on her doors it leaves ajar for a man stained by the same ink. If both are equal, why are our barbs reserved for the woman? — Saadat Hasan Manto

You would have realized that it wasn't Mumtaz, a muslim, a friend of yours, but a human being you had killed. I mean, if he was a bastard, by killing him you wouldn't have killed the bastard in him; similarly, assuming that he was a Muslim, you wouldn't have killed his Muslimness, but him. — Saadat Hasan Manto

Her pores were like those of an orange, its skin filled with juice, which, if you applied the slightest pressure, would squirt up into your eyes. She was that fresh. — Saadat Hasan Manto

Manto's take on Ismat:
Ismat's pen and tongue both run fast. When she starts writing, her ideas race ahead and the words cannot catch up with them. When she speaks, her words seem to tumble over one another. If sheenters the kitchen to show her culinary skill, everything will be in a mess. Being hasty by nature, she would conjure up the cooked roti in her mind even before she had finished kneading the dough. The potatoes would note yet be peeled although she would have already finished making the curry in her imagination. I feel sometimes she may just go into the kitchen andcome out again afer being satiated by her imagination. — Saadat Hasan Manto

We've been hearing this for some time now - Save India from this, save it from that. The fact is that India needs to be saved from the people who say it should be saved. — Saadat Hasan Manto

To those men who say that women from "good families" must come into the world of cinema, I have this question: What is it that you mean by "good?" A woman, who honestly puts her wares on display, and sells them without an intention to cheat, is such a woman not virtuous? — Saadat Hasan Manto

Here in Manto's own words that he wanted to mark his grave with:
In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
Here lies Saadat Hasan Manto and with him lie buried all the secrets and mysteries of the art of short-story writing ...
Under tons of earth he lies, still wondering who among the two is greater short-story writer: God or He. — Saadat Hasan Manto

War has brought inflation even to the graveyard. — Saadat Hasan Manto

Hindustan had become free. Pakistan had become independent soon after its inception but man was still slave in both these countries
slave of prejudice ... slave of religious fanaticism ... slave of barbarity and inhumanity. — Saadat Hasan Manto

that ugly truth about Manto, the man: that for all his love of Indian multiplicity, he went to Pakistan. He even tried convincing Chughtai to go. 'The future looks beautiful in Pakistan,' he said to her, 'We'll be able to get the houses of people who've fled from there. It'll be just us there. We'll progress very quickly.' When I read this, I had trouble holding the two Mantos in my mind. It seemed impossible that the creator of Manto, the narrator and fictional presence, so immersed in the variety of India, seeming so much to rejoice in it, should also be the author of that remark, with its sly wish for homogeneity, for the place where 'It'll be just us.' Chughtai, for other reasons, was also disgusted. — Saadat Hasan Manto

Look this is hardly fair. You sold me impure petrol at black-market price and not even one shop could be put to the torch. — Saadat Hasan Manto

He ate off dirty plates and was unfazed. His pillowcase was soiled and stank, but he never thought of changing it. Hamid thought long and hard, but he couldn't understand him. He often asked, 'Babuji, why aren't you revolted by dirtiness? — Saadat Hasan Manto

Allah sends down natural disasters to control population explosion. He encourages us to go to war, He creates Pakistan and Akhand Bharat. In doing this, He teaches humans new and innovative methods of birth control. — Saadat Hasan Manto

I feel like I am always the one tearing everything up and forever sewing it back together. — Saadat Hasan Manto

Dear God, master of the universe, compassionate and merciful: we who are steeped in sin, kneel in supplication before your throne and beseech you to recall from this world Saadat Hasan Manto, son of Ghulam Hasan Manto, who was a man of great piety. Take him away, Lord, for he runs away from fragrance and chases after filth. He hates the bright sun, preferring dark labyrinths. He has nothing but contempt for modesty but is fascinated by the naked and the shameless. He hates sweetness, but will give his life to taste bitter fruit. He will not so much as look at housewives but is in seventh heaven in the company of whores. He will not go near running waters, but loves to wade through filth. Where others weep, he laughs; and where others laugh, he weeps. Faces blackened by evil, he loves to wash with tender care to make visible their real features. He never thinks about you but follows Satan everywhere, the same fallen angel who once disobeyed you. — Saadat Hasan Manto

As a writer I find the relationship fascinating. Consider it. There is tension, and often unpleasantness, in both the union of man and woman, and of State and citizen. There is a great deal of hypocrisy too, but the relationship is not ever severed. The intercourse between State and citizens (it will be appropriate to call it forcible intercourse) also produces offspring as a marriage does. But frightening ones, like the "Safety Act and Ordinance". Offspring that resemble their father, the State, more than the citizenry. — Saadat Hasan Manto

And it is also possible, that Saadat Hasan dies, but Manto remains alive. — Saadat Hasan Manto

If a man has to make a woman the center of his love, why should he integrate animality into this sacred human emotion? ... Is love incompelete without it? ... Is love the name of physical excersize ? — Saadat Hasan Manto