Ruth Prawer Jhabvala QUOTES

1 " She explains that often the people who mean the most to us have to be left behind because they cannot follow us along our destined path. "

― Ruth Prawer Jhabvala , My Nine Lives: Chapters of a Possible Past

3 " Shortly before the monsoon, the heat becomes very intense. It is said that the more intense it becomes the more abundantly it will draw down the rains, so one wants it to be as hot as can be. And by that time one has accepted it -- not got used to but accepted; and moreover, too worn-out to fight against it, one submits to it and endures. "

― Ruth Prawer Jhabvala , Heat and Dust

5 " The world is always the same. Always beautiful: why should we let our delight in it die? The answer to this problem lies in education. If we teach our children to love everything about them - the sky, the air, water, flowers, animals - then they will keep their youthful spirit forever, whatever may happen to them in the trivial world of affairs. "

― Ruth Prawer Jhabvala , Get Ready for Battle

7 " When Indians sleep, they really do sleep. Neither adults nor children have a regular bed-time -- when they're tired they just drop, fully clothed, on to their beds, or the ground if they have no beds, and don't stir again until the next day begins. All one hears is occasionally someone crying out in their sleep, or a dog -- maybe a jackal -- baying at the moon. I lie awake for hours: with happiness, actually. I have never known such a sense of communion. Lying like this under the open sky there is a feeling of being immersed in space -- though not in empty space, for there are all these people sleeping all around me, the whole town and I am part of it. How different from my often very lonely room in London with only my walls to look at and my books to read. "

― Ruth Prawer Jhabvala , Heat and Dust

9 " The girl was particularly indignant --not only about this watchman but about all the other people all over India. She said they were all dirty and dishonest. She had a very pretty, open, English face but when she said that it became mean and clenched, and I realised that the longer she stayed in India the more her face would become like that. "

― Ruth Prawer Jhabvala , Heat and Dust

11 " There are certain people who if they are absent life becomes hard to bear. "

― Ruth Prawer Jhabvala , Heat and Dust

13 " You have to believe me without proof. That's what faith is — believing without proof.'
They got up from the bank of stones. It was getting late, the shadows lay cool and lengthened on the grass and the tops of the trees had the stillness around them that means the end of the day and its liquidation in the setting sun. They retraced their steps back to the house where his car was parked, and when they passed through the blighted orchard, he picked up an apple for her and she ate it. She didn't even have to look; she knew it would be whole, without worms or decay. "

― Ruth Prawer Jhabvala , At the End of the Century

15 " Although the Major was so sympathetic to India, his piece sounds like a warning. He said that one has to be very determined to withstand--to stand up to--India. And the most vulnerable, he said, are always those who love her best. There are many ways of loving India, many things to love her for...but all, said the Major, are dangerous for the European who allows himself to love too much. India always, he said, finds out the weak spot and presses on it. ...Yes, concluded the Major, it is all very well to love and admire India--intellectually, aesthetically, he did not mention sexually but he must have been aware of that factor too--but always with a virile, measured, European feeling. One should never, he warned, allow oneself to become softened (like Indians) by an excess of feeling; because the moment that happens -- the moment one exceeds one's measure-- one is in danger of being dragged over to the other side. ... He who loved India so much, knew her so well, chose to spend the end of his days here! But she always remained for him an opponent, even sometimes an enemy, to be guarded and if necessary fought against from without and, especially, from within: from within one's own being. "

― Ruth Prawer Jhabvala , Heat and Dust

17 " There are certain people whoif they areabsent life becomes hard to bear. "

― Ruth Prawer Jhabvala