Granta Quotes & Sayings

On her first day in Musan, a policeman picked her out of the crowd. "Hey, you," he yelled at her. After more than two years of living in China, Oak-hee was pale and plump. She used scented shampoo and soap. She looked and smelled different from everyone else. Furthermore, she was also carrying a transistor radio she had purchased in China that picked up South Korean programs. The police officer confiscated the radio and (after asking her to show him the frequencies for South Korean radio and demanding her earphones) turned her over to the Bowibu. — Barbara Demick

There is one thing I can say for certain: the older a person gets, the lonelier he becomes. It's true for everyone. But maybe that isn't wrong. What I mean is, in a sense our lives are nothing more than a series of stages to help us get used to loneliness. That being the case, there's no reason to complain. And besides who would be complaint to anyway? (A Walk To Kobe, Granta 124: Travel) — Haruki Murakami

It matters, it always matters, to name rubbish as rubbish ... to do otherwise is to legitimize it.
Outside The Whale (Granta, 1984) — Salman Rushdie

The joy which answers to prayer give, cannot be described; and the impetus which they afford to the spiritual life is exceedingly great. — George Muller

How come we got the grumpy boat of bandy-legged Puritans? How come we didn't get the Italian party boat with the cappuccino makers and the gelato machine? That was the sexy boat, man. — Greg Proops

Max always left immediately after supplying the food, like he was the cat's dirty secret and if its big cat-gang buddies found out it had a human on the side, it'd be laughed out of the alley. — Megan Erickson

Who reports the works and ways of the clouds, those wondrous creations coming into being every day like freshly upheaved mountains? — John Muir

I think it would be frustrating to be a match maker. "What do you do?" "I'm a match maker" "Aw, that's really romantic" "No, umm ... I actually ... never mind" — Demetri Martin

While my library contains the works of travel writers, I have mostly searched for those who speak about their own place in the world. But the world is changing and many people have no place to call home. Some of the most important kinds of travel writing now are stories of flight, written by people who belong to the millions of asylum seekers in the world. These are stories that are almost too hard to tell, but which, once read, will never be forgotten. Some of these stories had to be smuggled out of detention centres, or were caught covertly on smuggled mobiles in snatches of calls on weak connections from remote and distant prisons. Why is this writing important? Behrouz Boochani, a Kurdish journalist and human rights campaigner who has been detained on Manus Island for over three years with no hope for release yet in sight, puts it plainly in a message to the world in the anthology Behind the Wire. It is, he wrote, 'because we need to change our imagination'. — Alexis Wright

12 I wrote to Mrs. Traynor. I didn't tell her about Lily, just that I hoped she was well, that I was back from my travels and would be in her area in a few weeks with a friend, and would like to say hello if possible. I sent it first class, and felt oddly excited as it plopped into the postbox. Dad had told me over the phone that she had left Granta House within weeks of Will's death. He said the estate workers had been shocked, but I thought back to the time I had spotted Mr. Traynor out with Della, the woman he was now about to — Jojo Moyes

You gotta do it with class and integrity. If not, you're gonna drag yourself through the mud. — Solomon Burke

It is by giving the freedom to the other, that is by letting go, we gain our own freedom back. — Aleksandra Ninkovic

A whirl of thick flakes emerged from an irony-grey infinity, almost obscuring Granta House. — Jojo Moyes

Yet in our hands and within our view is a whole universe of discovery and clarification, which is a pleasure to study in itself, gives the average person access to insights that not even Darwin or Einstein possessed, and offers the promise of near-miraculous advances in healing, in energy, and in peaceful exchange between different cultures. Yet millions of people in all societies still prefer the myths of the cave and the tribe and the blood sacrifice. — Christopher Hitchens