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Jeet Thayil Quotes

I found Bombay and opium, the drug and the city, the city of opium and the drug Bombay

I found Bombay and opium, the drug and the city, the city of opium and the drug Bombay

Jeet Thayil
Cities, Drug, Bombay

My religion is no way of knowing me.

Jeet Thayil
Knowing, Way
Jeet Thayil (2012). “Narcopolis”, p.174, Faber & Faber

We're waiting for a glance or a word, some acknowledgement that we are here.

Jeet Thayil
Waiting, Glances, Acknowledgement
Jeet Thayil (2012). “Narcopolis”, p.21, Faber & Faber

Drugs are a bad habit, so why do it? Because, said Dimple, it isn't the heroin that we're addicted to, it's the drama of the life, the chaos of it, that's the real addiction and we never get over it; and because when you come down to it, the high life, that is, the intoxicated life, is the best of the limited options offered.

Jeet Thayil
Real, Drama, Addiction

Because now there's time enough not to hurry, to light the lamp and open the window to the moon and take a moment to dream of a great and broken city, because when the day starts its business I'll have to stop, these are night-time tales that vanish in the sunlight like vampire dust

Jeet Thayil
Dream, Moon, Night

All I did was write it down, one word after the other, beginning and ending with the same one, Bombay.

Jeet Thayil
Writing, Bombay, Beginnings And Endings

The world is on fire; time is a bomb. Ten thousand years are not enough When so much remains to be done

Jeet Thayil
Fire, Years, Bombs

Then there are the addicts, the hunger addicts, the rage addicts, the poverty addicts, and power addicts, and the pure addicts who are addicted not to substances but to the oblivion and the tenderness the substances engender. An addict, if you don't mind me saying so, is like a saint. What is a saint but someone who has cut himself off, voluntarily, from the world's traffic and currency?

Jeet Thayil
Cutting, Mind, Saint
"Narcopolis". Book by Jeet Thayil, 2012.

How will the ships navigate without stars? And then he remembered that the stars were dead, long dead, and the light they shed was not to be trusted, was false, if not an outright lie, and in any case was inadequate, unequal to its task, which was to illuminate the evil that men did.

Jeet Thayil
Stars, Lying, Men

Come on, a 25-page digression on god? You can’t have that kind of thing, cut it out!”

Jeet Thayil
Cutting, Pages, Kind

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