Chitra Banerjee Quotes & Sayings

I write in my study, where I also have my prayer altar. I believe that keeps me focused and gives me positive energy and reminds me that I'm merely the instrument of greater creative forces. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

The dream is not a drug but a way. Listen to where it can take you. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

A problem becomes a problem only if you believe it to be so. And often others see you as you see yourself. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

In the temple, I sit on the cool floor next to Grandfather, beneath the stern benevolence of the goddess's glance. Grandfather is clad in only a traditional silk dhoti
no fancy modern clothes for him. That's one of the things I admire about him, how he is always unapologetically, uncompromisingly himself. His spine is erect and impatient; white hairs blaze across his chest. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Each book is a separate entity for me. When I'm writing it, I enter its world and inhabit its vocabulary. I forget, as it were, that I ever wrote anything else. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

In your yearning you have made me into that which I am not. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

The mark of a wise man is that he changes his mind when he sees mistake. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Love comes like lightning, and disappears the same way. If you are lucky, it strikes you right. If not, you'll spend your life yearning for a man you can't have. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Each day has a color, a smell. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

I don't put much stock in remembering things. Being able to forget is a superior skill. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

In the things we love lie clues to who we are. What we want for those we love. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Everyone has a story. I don't believer anyone can go through life without encountering at least one amazing thing. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

And the mother, who through all the years of her hardship had never shed a tear, wept at his trust and her deception. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Girls have to be toughened so they can survive a world that presses harder on women. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

She had always been this way: interested-quite unnecessarily, some would say-in the secrets of strangers. When flying, she always chose a window seat so that when the plane took off or landed, she could look down on the tiny houses and imagine the lives of the people who inhabited them. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

When your heart is crusted over with your own pain, it is easy to feel little for others. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

I was caught on the freeway for hours when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. The entire city had to be evacuated. I observed lives threatened by catastrophes and a whole range of behaviour. What could people do during a crisis? — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Truth, like diamond, has many facets. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

I came into Chicago in winter - I'd never been so cold in my life! I was very homesick, and a poor student at that time. America seemed so different and so filled with amazing things - and almost all of them were out of my reach. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Because ultimately only the witness
and not the actors
knows the truth (Vyasa to Draupadi) — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

My mother clutches at the collar of my shirt. I rub her back and feel her tears on my neck. It's been decades since our bodies have been this close. It's an odd sensation, like a torn ligament knitting itself back, lumpy and imperfect, usable as long as we know not to push it too hard. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

'The Mahabharata,' which inspired my novel 'Palace of Illusions,' also has many stories embedded within the main tale. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Fennel, which is the spice for Wednesdays, the day of averages, of middle-aged people ... Fennel ... smelling of changes to come. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

I want people to be sensitive about how women feel and think. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

A kshatriya woman's highest purpose in life is to support the warriors in her life: her father, brother, husband and sons. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Above us our palace waits, the only one I've ever needed. Its walls are space, its floor is sky, its center everywhere. We rise; the shapes cluster around us in welcome, dissolving and forming again like fireflies in a summer evening. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

The Mahabharata might have been a great and heroic battle, but there are no winners. The losers, of course, lose. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

'The Moonstone' was all I could have hoped for. A mysterious, cursed jewel, wrested from India, only to be stolen later from a great British mansion. Enigmatic, dangerous priests who follow it across the ocean in hopes of wresting it back. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

I show women growing, changing, becoming stronger in many kinds of situations. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Even the wisest don't know what's hidden in the depths of their being — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

It's different for different people, and for a woman it's important to look as good she wants to look. But you don't need to do it for someone else or to impress some male out there. You do it for your own sake. You wear what makes you feel good, you put make-up and jewellery - whatever gives you self-confidence. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

The power of a man is like a bull's charge, while the power of a woman moves aslant, like a serpent seeking its prey. Know the particular properties of your power. Unless you use it correctly, it won't get you what you want. His words perplexed me. Wasn't power singular and simple? In the world that I knew, men just happened to have more of it. (I hoped to change this.) — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

She lifts a bowl of kheer and her thoughts, flittering like dusty sparrows in a brown back alley, turn a sudden kingfisher blue. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Often, writer's block will occur when I don't understand a character or his/her motivations. So I will make notes analysing characters. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

The darkness is a cresting wave. It sweeps me up out of my body until I float among the stars, those tine bright pores on the sky's skin. If only I could pass through them, I would end up on the other side, the right side, shadowless, perfectly illuminated, beyond the worries of this mundane world — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

A dream is a telegram from the hidden world ... Only a fool or an illiterate person ignores it. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

My grandfather was a very strong personality. He certainly ruled his household with an iron fist, even though it was often gloved in velvet! — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

After 9/11, there was so much distress in America that it led to an inter-cultural breakdown. Some of our communities were targeted. Many of our adults shut themselves off from other cultures. I tried to bring children of Indian and other cultures together in my literature. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Everytime i have turned the page he re-enters my life as awkward as postscript — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

What is the most wondrous thing on earth? Each day countless humans enter the Temple of Death, yet the ones left behind continue to live as though they were immortal ... In — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Chili, spice of red Thursday, which is the day of reckoning. Day which invites us to pick up the sack of our existence and shake it inside out. Day of suicide, day of murder. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Unlike novels with a hero or two heroines, in 'One Amazing Thing,' all the characters tell stories they've never told anyone before, so all the voices become equally important. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

I have been watching how Indian women are forced to do certain things, as the stories of sacrifice and devotion in mythology demand from them. And then there are inspiring stories about women like the Rani of Jhansi that offer women refreshing role models. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Just as we cast off worn clothes and wear new ones, when the time arrives, the soul casts off the body and finds a new one to work out its karma. Therefore the wise grieve neither for the living nor the dead. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

After September 11, 2001, I was feeling like I really wanted more understanding between cultures. It seemed to me that so much of what happened on September 11 was because people didn't understand each other and were suspicious of each other. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

The bird began to carry them to a new life in a new land. We'll be happy ever after, the queen wanted to whisper to her daughter as they flew, but she knew that was not true. Life never is that way. And so instead she held her daughter in silence, heart to heart, and as they traveled each heart drew on the other's strength, so that when they reached their destination they would be ready. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

After the fire, when I'd tried to express my gratitude for their kindness to our customers, they'd been awkward, uncomfortable. My father had had to explain to me that giving thanks is not a common practice in India.
'Then how do you know if people appreciated what you did?' I'd asked.
'Do you really need to know?' my father had asked back. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

One of the things that I am learning is that each generation will have its own negotiations with identity. And one generation can not necessarily help the other generation with it. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

To make money for college, I worked in our college dining room. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

In many immigrant families, the parents are just talking and talking about the home country until the children are like, 'Oh, don't tell us any more.' — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

How pride had kept them from admitting their mistakes - and — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

I love visual art. I painted for many years when I was younger. I have studied modern/contemporary Indian art a bit and am very impressed with the talent in India. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

We even had a different word for Christmas in my language, Bengali: Baradin, which literally meant 'big day.' — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

The choice they made in the moment of my need changed something in our relationship. I no longer depended on them so completely in the future. And when I took care to guard myself from hurt, it was as much from them as from our enemies. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Sometimes
she knows this from her own life
to get to the other side, you must travel through grief. No detours are possible. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

I'm too careful with money - comes out of being poor for several years while growing up. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

why man found himself driven to wrongdoing in spite of good intentions, Krishna replied, Because of anger and desire, our two direst enemies. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

In community work, you reach some people, but in writing, I can reach many more people, not only in exploring issues of domestic violence, but also by showing the importance of strong women in communities. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

All of us groping in caverns, our fingertips raw against stone, searching for that slight crack, the edge of a door opening into love. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Isn't that what truth is? The force of a person's believing seeps into those around him - into the very earth and air and water - until there's nothing else. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Each spice has a special day to it. For turmeric it is Sunday, when light drips fat and butter-colored into the bins to be soaked up glowing, when you pray to the nine planets for love and luck. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

As I lived on in America, I got to truly know the people of this country - so many kind and wonderful people, people of so many races - who helped me in so many ways. Who became my friends. I realized that underneath our different accents, habits, foods, religions, ways of thinking, we shared a common humanity. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

By the time we're adults, our ideas have solidified. So I wanted to write for a younger audience, who would perhaps love heroes from other cultures. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

I wrote 'Mistress of Spices' at an unusual time when I had a near-death experience after the birth of my second son. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

To achieve important things, we have to sacrifice what's important to us. That's an idea that's very central to Indian thinking. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Would you like to come in?" I said. My hands were sweaty. Inside my chest an ocean heaved and crashed and heaved again.
"I would," he said. I saw his Adam's apple jerk as he swallowed. "Thank you."
I was distracted by that thank you. We had moved past the language of formality long ago. It was strange to relearn it with each other. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Everyone breathes in air, but it's a wise person who knows when to use that air to speak and when to exhale in silence. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

I thought that if lokas existed at all, good women would surely go to one where men were not allowed so that they could be finally free of male demands. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Rakhi likes the comfortable clutter of her life, the things she loves gathered around her like a shawl against the winterliness of the world. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Who held his cries in until red swam behind his eyelids like bleeding stars. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

I started putting down my thoughts on paper out of loneliness while I was studying in America. I was very close to my grandfather, and when he died, I couldn't visit home. I started scribbling those thoughts. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Can our actions change our destiny? Or are they like sand piled against the breakage in a dam, merely delaying the inevitable? — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

To upset the delicate axis of giving and receiving on which our lives are held precarious. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Pain, which is ultimately only like itself. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

A book can be wonderful and powerful and accessible and artful all at the same time. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

I want to weep too, not for me but for us all
for rich or poor, educated or illiterate, here we are finally reduced to a sameness in this sisterhood of deprivation. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Hope not built on reason brings disappointment only. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

I write best late at night, when everyone in the house has gone to bed. There's something magical about that late night silence that appeals to me. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

I am a Hindu, brought up mostly in India. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

I moved here when I was 20 to go to college. After I moved here, I became much more aware of the importance of the culture and literature to my life. Sometimes when you're immersed in something, you just don't notice it very much. Moving away makes you appreciate your culture. Living here, I've thought more and more about India, and what being Indian-American means to me. And it's made me incorporate things from Indian literature into my own writing. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Knowing yet not knowing is a strange sensation, like being split in two — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

That's how it is sometimes when we plunge into the depths of our lives. No one can accompany us, not even those who would give up their hearts for our happiness. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

I am buoyant and expansive and uncontainable
but I always was so, only I never knew it! — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

As a writer, I have to show complexities. Through my writings, I hope to bring out people in different situations and not just one-dimensional beings. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

I tried to hold on to this compassion, sensing its preciousness, but even as I reached to grasp it, it dissipated into wisps. No revelation can endure unless it is bolstered by a calm pure mind- and I'm afraid I didn't possess that. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

I saw something I hadn't realized before: words wasted energy. I would use my strength instead to nurture my belief that my life would unfurl uniquely. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

I have to believe in possibility. How else can we bear the enormous weight of life? — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Or is this how humans survive, shrugging off history, immersing themselves in the moment? — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

As I remember my grandfather and those Christmas mornings he gave for a little girl's pleasure, I know that often a big life starts with doing small things. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

India has been a very accepting culture. We pride ourselves on that. That is a global truth. In fact, it forms a major theme in my books. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

I was about 12 when I first encountered 'The Moonstone' - or a Classics Illustrated version of it - digging through an old trunk in my grandfather's house on a rainy Bengali afternoon. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Fenugreek, Tuesday's spice, when the air is green like mosses after rain. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

I've been interested in dreams myself for a long time, and it's a big part of the Indian tradition, especially where I was brought up in Calcutta in my family, which is quite traditional. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

A well-meaning man, Dhai Ma liked to say, is more dangerous because he believes in the rightness of what he does. Give me an honest rascal any day! — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

My favorite part was when my grandfather and I would make a special trip to Firpo's Bakery for red and green Christmas cookies and fruitcake studded with the sweetest cherries I've ever tasted. Usually Firpo's was too expensive for our slim budget, but Christmas mornings they gave a discount to any children who came in. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

I think writers from both East and West have long been fascinated by the ancient tales and the opportunity to reinterpret them. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Monday is the day of silence, day of the whole white mung bean, which is sacred to the moon. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

I like being myself. Maybe just slimmer, with a few less wrinkles. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

I feel I can express the nuances of the Bengali lifestyle and ways of thinking better than other cultures. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Made to the other women when I joined them at night. The pleasures that arise from sense-objects are bound to end, and thus they are only sources of pain. Don't get attached to them. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni