15 incredible quotes from Indian books

1. "Let nobody fool you, most couples are conjoined on earth. The mismatches, now they are a different story. They are made in heaven."

- Cuckold by Kiran Nagarkar

2. "'He was a natural Protestant when I met him', Em would say. 'He protested everything.'"

- Em and The Big Hoom by Jerry Pinto

3. "Pepper it was that brought Vasco da Gama's tall ships across the ocean, from Lisbon's Tower of Belem to the Malabar Coast…. English and French sailed in the wake of that first-arrived Portuguese, so that in the period called Discovery-of-India — but how could we be discovered when we were not covered before? — we were 'not so much sub-continent as sub-condiment', as my distinguished mother had it."

- The Moor's Last Sigh by Salman Rushdie

4. "The government to you is what God is to agnostics—only to be invoked when your own well-being is at stake."

- Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh

5. "… the urgency of reaching the Taj (Mahal) only came to a head when politics once again tore venomously into religion and we found ourselves looking at pictures of another ruined monument. This time it was the Babri Masjid, a mosque which had stood so harmlessly through the centuries that people didn't even know it was there."

- Beethoven Among the Cows by Rukun Advani

6. "A scooter in Madras is man’s promise that he will not return home drunk in the evening. Hard news reporters like Ousep Chacko consider it an insult to be seen on one, but these men are mostly bank clerks."

- The Illicit Happiness of Other People by Manu Joseph

7. "Then what in your opinion is a good story?’ ‘What it’s always been, monkey,’ Ganesha said. ‘One dhansu conflict. Some chaka-chak song and dance. Grief. Love. Love for the lover, love for the mother. Love for the land. Comedy. Terror. One tremendous villain whom we must love also. All the elements properly balanced and mixed together, item after item, like a perfect meal with a dance of tastes. There you have it."

- Red Earth and Pouring Rain by Vikram Chandra

8. "By now, if you lived in Sea View Apartments and wanted to view the sea, you had to turn on your television and get Baywatch, though if you were the type that liked Baywatch, chances are you did not watch the bay very much."

- No Onions Nor Garlic by Srividya Natarajan

9. "Learning is just remembering slowly, like simmer coming to boil."

- What the Body Remembers by Shauna Singh Baldwin

10. "The curtain rises. Darkness, that furry old familiar of night, spreads itself onstage. It means to stay, this sinuous, long-tailed night, moulting its woolly skin again and again, a thousand times if necessary. Or a thousand and one times — a safer measure of uneven infinity."

- When Dreams Travel by Githa Hariharan

11. "I enjoyed the solitude of the third-class (train) crowds … and the sense of having nothing to do but watch the green, pond-filled, banana-leafed countryside pass by, sipping tea scented with the damp earth of its terracotta cup."

- An Atlas of Impossible Longing by Anuradha Roy

12. "Shekhar has a name for the classical musician's caste: Ear Touchers. Pronounce the guru's name, touch your ears with humility. Miss a note, touch your ears with shame. Miss a beat, touch your ears in abject apology."

- Crowfall by Shanta Gokhale

13. "Madurai Mani outdid himself and the audience was ecstatic. I heard an amazing new sound of appreciation, quite unlike the Hindustani ‘wah, wah'. Whenever the listener was smitten by something particularly wonderful that the performer was doing, he would raise his chin, bring his lips together in a protruding ‘O’, and make a series of little clicking sounds by striking the tongue against the back of the front teeth, gently shaking his head from side to side in mock helplessness. …As the singer got into his stride, more and more people started to emit this sound periodically. I saw the alarm in Pran Nath's eyes and tried to soothe him but he was so deeply distracted by this sound that he just could not concentrate on the music. 'I cannot believe this. One or two noisy enthusiasts are bad enough. But there are rows and rows of them doing this together, like crickets in the monsoon', he said in a stage whisper."

- Raga'n Josh: Stories from a Musical Life by Sheila Dhar

14. "How do I explain the word? Ka ktien. Say it. Out loud. Ka ktien. The first, a short, sharp thrust of air from the back of your throat. The second, a lift of the tongue and a delicate tangle of tip and teeth. Once printed, the word is feeble and carries little power. It wrestles with ink and typography and margins, struggling to be what it was originally. We, who had no letters with which to etch our history, have married our words to music, to mantras, that we repeat until lines grow old and wither and fade away. Until they are forgotten and there is silence."

- Boats on Land by Janice Pariat

15. "The Incredible Woman raged through the skies, lassoed a planet, set it in orbit, rescued a starship, flattened a mountain, straightened a building, smiled at a child, caught a few thieves, all in one morning, and then, took a long time off to visit her psychiatrist, since she is at heart a really womanly woman and all she wants is a normal life".

- Broadcast Live, The Fabulous Feminist by Suniti Namjoshi