QUOTA of QUOTES
“When you face something that obstructs what you’re trying to do, ensure that it isn’t an absolute no, something that you can’t get past.”
–Maadhav Shah, 16,
who overcame age restrictions to begin
taking college courses when he was 10
and recently graduated from American River College in
Sacramento with three associate degrees (math, physical
science, and social science) before even completing
high school. (Fox 40 News)
“Asian Americans are very ambitious and
very dedicated to schoolwork, and we place a lot
of importance on education and doing in well
in school so that our kids can go to the best colleges
and get the best jobs. Other ethnic communities–and I’m not saying all communities
of every other race, but some–don’t have even a fraction of
that ambition.”
–State Representative Latha Mangipudi, of New Hampshire. (The American Bazaar)
“I would have done anything else other than
write this book. If I had to dig a ditch, I’d have
dug that instead of writing this — it was so horrible
writing so badly for so long. Every day, I felt
like an idiot trying to write this.”
–New York-based writer Akhil Sharma, who spent 12 years writing his second
novel Family Life, which is based on his family’s experiences. (Times of India)
“I have turned my dream into a goal and
I will give it all I got to achieve it.”
—Monica
Gill of Boston, the recently crowned Miss
India World, who aspires to become a Bollywood
actress and is enrolled in an 18-
week course at the Kishore Namit Kapoor
Acting School in Mumbai. (Desi Talk)
“This prize is English PEN’s way of thanking
Salman Rushdie not just for his books and
his many years of speaking out for freedom of expression,
but also for his countless private acts of
kindness. When he sees writers unjustly vilified,
prosecuted, or forced into exile, he takes a personal interest.”
–Maureen Freely, chair of the judging committee that
awarded acclaimed author Salman Rushdie the 2014
PEN Pinter Prize.
“Incredibly he stepped out of his
truck and took his first step to freedom
at one minute past midnight on July 4th,
which felt so extraordinarily fitting.”
–Wildlife SOS founder Kartick Satyanarayan, part of a team that rescued
an elephant named Raju from
an owner in Uttar Pradesh who had
kept him in spiked shackles and
used him to beg for money from tourists. (Daily Mail)
Compiled and partly written by Indian humorist MELVIN DURAI, author of the novel Bala Takes the Plunge.
[Comments? Contributions? Please email us at melvin@melvindurai.com. We welcome jokes, quotes, online clips, and more.]
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