Top 53 R. K. Narayan Quotes About Life (WISDOM)

Top 10 Most Famous R. K. Narayan Quotes (BEST)

“The difference between a simpleton and an intelligent man, according to the man who is convinced that he is of the latter category, is that the former wholeheartedly accepts all things that he sees and hears while the latter never admits anything except after a most searching scrutiny. He imagines his intelligence to be a sieve of closely woven mesh through which nothing but the finest can pass.”
R. K. Narayan

Life is about making right things and going on. — **Life** is about making right things and going on.

It is stimulating to live in a society that is not standardized or mechanized, and is free from monotony.

“In a world where we are accustomed to rivalries over possession, authority, and borders, and people clashing over the issue, ‘Ours,’ or ‘Mine, not yours,’ it is rather strange to find two people debating whose the kingdom is not, and asserting: ‘Yours, not mine.’.”
R. K. Narayan

You become a writer by writing. It is a yoga. — You become a writer by **writing**. It is a **yoga**.

No one ever accepts criticism so cheerfully. Neither the man who utters it nor the man who invites it really means it.

The unbeaten brat will remain unlearned.

A profound unmitigated loneliness is the only truth of life. — A profound unmitigated loneliness is the only **truth** of life.

We always question the bonafides of the man who tells us unpleasant facts.

If you threw a stone into a gutter, it would only spurt filth in your face.

15 Thought-Provoking R. K. Narayan Quotes

“We are a flawed, weak species, he gently reminds us in these pages, focusing his attention, clearly and without sentiment, on those who will stoop low, those who will stop at nothing. What makes us care for such frequently pathetic characters is that they, like most of the rest of us, are strivers, driven by hopes for a slightly better life.”
R. K. Narayan

Do you realise how few ever really understand how fortunate they are in their circumstances?

Past is gone, present is going, and tomorrow is day after tomorrow’s yesterday. So why worry about anything God is in all this. — Past is gone, present is going, and tomorrow is day after tomorrow’s yesterday. So why worry about anything? God is in all this.

“This education has reduced us to a nation of morons; we were strangers to our own culture and camp followers of another culture, feeding on leavings and garbage. What about our own roots? I am up against the system, the whole method and approach of a system of education which makes us morons, cultural morons, but efficient clerks for all your business and administration offices.”
R. K. Narayan

It seems to me that we generally do not have a correct measure of our own wisdom. — It seems to me that we generally do not have a correct measure of our own **wisdom**.

This is my child. I planted it. I saw it grow. I loved it. Don't cut it down. — This is my child. I planted it. I saw it grow. I loved it. Don’t cut it down.

“The sun set beyond the sea, so says the poet – and when a poet mentions a sea, we have to accept it no harm in letting a poet describe his vision, no need to question his geography.”
R. K. Narayan

Certain things acquired an evil complexion if phrased, but remained harmless in the mind.

What can we do with a creature who returns to his doom with such a free heart?

“There are no more surprises and shocks in life, so that I watch the flame without agitation. For me the greatest reality is this and nothing else. Nothing else will worry or interest me in life hereafter.”
R. K. Narayan

Society presses upon us all the time. The progress of the last half century is the progress of the frog out of his well. — Society presses upon us all the **time**. The progress of the last half century is the progress of the frog out of his well.

Even when you realize that the one before you is an enemy and must be treated sternly, do not hurt with words.

Words have a knack of breeding more words, whereas laughter, a deafening, roaring laughter, has the knack of swallowing everything up. — Words have a knack of breeding more words, whereas **laughter**, a deafening, roaring laughter, has the knack of swallowing everything up.

Every creature is born with a potential store of violence.

Knowledge, like food, must be taken within limits. You must know only as much as you need, and not more. — **Knowledge**, like food, must be taken within limits. You must know only as much as you need, and not more.

10 Wise R. K. Narayan Quotes

“If someone should ask, “how should an Opposition function?” the best answer would be, “in the manner of a traditional mother-in-law who watches the performance of household work by a daughter-in-law and follows her about with her comments.”
R. K. Narayan

How can two living entities possessing intelligence and judgement ever be tied together for a lifetime?

Death and its associates, after the initial shock, produce callousness.

“We come together only to go apart again. The law of life can’t be avoided. The law comes into operation the moment we detach ourselves from our mother’s womb. All struggle & misery in life is due to our attempt to arrest this law or get away from it or in allowing ourselves to be hurt by it. The fact must be recognized. A profound unmitigated loneliness is the only truth of life. All else is false. The law of life. No sense in battling against it.”
R. K. Narayan

But there is this peculiarity about heat it appears to affect only those that think of it. — But there is this peculiarity about heat: it appears to affect only those that think of it.

The gods grow jealous of too much contentment anywhere, and they show their displeasure all of a sudden. — The gods grow jealous of too much **contentment** anywhere, and they show their displeasure all of a sudden.

“Those who believe in destiny and those who drift without such beliefs are alike the worst among men; only those who act and perform what is right for their station in life are worthy of praise.”
R. K. Narayan

Every minute becomes a yesterday and is lost forever.

It’s often said that God made man in His own image. It’s also true that man makes God in his own image.

When one is seized with a passion to understand one’s self, one has to leave behind all normal life and habitual modes of thought. — When one is seized with a **passion** to understand one’s self, one has to leave behind all normal life and habitual modes of thought.

3 R. K. Narayan Quotes About Love and Friendship

“Friendship was another illusion like love, though it did not reach the same mad heights. People pretended that they were friends, when the fact was they were brought together by force of circumstances.”
R. K. Narayan

“He then explained his new philosophy, which followed the devastating discovery that Love and Friendship were the veriest illusions. He explained that people married because their sexual appetite had to be satisfied and there must be somebody to manage the house. There was nothing deeper than that in any man and woman relationship.”
R. K. Narayan

3 R. K. Narayan Quotes About Travel

“A man who preferred to dress like a permanent tourist was just what a guide passionately looked for all his life. You may want to ask why I became a guide or when. I was a guide for the same reason as someone else is a signaler, porter, or guard. It is fated thus. Don’t laugh at my railway associations. The railways got into my blood very early in life. Engines with their tremendous clanging.”
R. K. Narayan

Travelers are an enthusiastic lot. They do not mind any inconvenience as long as they have something to see. — **Travelers** are an enthusiastic lot. They do not mind any inconvenience as long as they have something to see.

“In a few months I was a seasoned guide. I had viewed myself as an amateur guide and a professional shopman, but now gradually I began to think of myself as a part-time shop-keeper and a full-time tourist guide.”
R.K. Narayan

12 R. K. Narayan Quotes That Will Make You Think

“The faint aroma of gum and calico that hangs about a library is as the fragrance of incense to me. I think the most beautiful sight is the gilt-edged backs of a row of books on a shelf. The alley between two well-stocked shelves in a hall fills me with the same delight as passing through a silent avenue of trees. The colour of a binding-cloth and its smooth texture gives me the same pleasure as touching a flower on its stalk. A good library hall has an atmosphere which elates. I have seen one or two University Libraries that have the same atmosphere as a chapel, with large windows, great trees outside, and glass doors sliding on noiseless hinges.”
R. K. Narayan

All the jarring, rattling and clanking, spurting and hissing of the moving train of the train dissolved in the distance into something that was half a sob and half a sigh.

The only trouble was that the scripture master, Mr. Ebenzar, was a fanatic.

“It was Monday morning. Swaminathan was reluctant to open his eyes. he considered Monday specially unpleasant in the calendar. After the delicious freedom of Saturday and Sunday, it was difficult to get into the Monday mood of work and discipline. He shuddered at the very thought of school: the dismal yellow building; the fire-eyed Vedanayagam, his class teacher, and headmaster with his thin long cane.”
R. K. Narayan

The compartment built to ‘seat 8 passengers; 4 British Troops, or 6 Indian Troops’ now carried only nine.

But you are not my wife. You are a woman who will go to bed with anyone who flatters your antics. That’s.

“But it was like hiding a corpse. I’ve come to the conclusion that nothing in this world can be hidden or suppressed. All such attempts are like holding an umbrella to conceal the sun.”
R. K. Narayan

If he(Mani) were Swaminathan, he would have closed the whole incident at the beginning by hurling an ink-bottle, if nothing bigger was available, at the teacher. — If he(Mani) were Swaminathan, he would have closed the whole incident at the beginning by hurling an ink-bottle, if nothing bigger was available, at the **teacher**.

“I came in several times and spoke, but perhaps you were asleep when I thought you were awake.’ ‘You are very considerate to explain it this way,’ Sugreeva said, ‘but I was drunk’.”
R. K. Narayan

“Rama glanced at her whenever a beautiful object caught his eye. Every tint of the sky, every shape of a flower or bud, every elegant form of a creeper reminded him of some aspect or other of Sita’s person.”
R. K. Narayan

“The next three days I was very busy. My table was placed in the front room of the new house. All my papers and books were arranged neatly. My clothes hung on a peg. The rest of the house was swept and cleaned.”
R. K. Narayan

“By the twelfth day of his fast, Raju himself has become a tourist attraction. Before an enormous crowd and an American television crew, the starving man is helped down to the drought-stricken river to pray.”
R. K. Narayan