Illicit Happiness Of Others Quotes

Morality was probably the invention of unattractive men. Whom else does it benefit really

In this world, it is very hard to escape happiness.” – Unni Chacko

But then the fate of shy people is that all of their fears usually come true.

Men do things. We can't help it. That's all there is to it. As you will discover in time, the primary choice every man has to make is whether he wants to be himself or if he wants peace.

No matter what the delusions are, parents do not really know their children

So what is truth, then ?’ ‘Truth is a successful delusion.

It is the misanthrope who alone has clarity.By standing outside the huddles of man,he sees a lot,and what he often sees is the evidence that people are not as smart as dogs think they are.And he wants to see it time and again.In the fog of ambiguities and mysteries,he desperately searches for truths because truth usually shows humanity in a poor light

How unfortunate is the guy who does not live in the extravagant memory of an infatuated young woman.

If two people believe in the same idea of truth, it is a delusion.

He decayed in a state of gentle happiness.

My love, I feel terrible without you. It is like being with you.

The true nature of sorrow is boredom.

Strong people write bad stories.

It is a misfortune to be in the presence of a writer, even a failed writer, to be seen by him, be his passing study and remain in his corrupt memory. It is like the insult of a corpse on the road by a war photographer.

Thoma is amazed at the telepathy of women. How miraculous it is for one woman to do something weird and another woman to extract its intended meaning.

Fight, Thoma, put fight.

Happiness as an inescapable fate, not a pursuit.

The distinction between a delusion and a lie is the very difference between a successful saint and a fraud.

At the heart of memory, is the stillness of time.

The Boy will not be a failure. Mythili knows.She has seen the generations before.The boy will make it.As his father has said,he does not have the option of failure.He will crack atleast one entrance exam,and he will one day have a nice house in a suburb of San Francisco,or in a suburb of a suburb of San Francisco.He will find a cute Tamil Brahmin wife and make her produce two sweet children.He will drive a Toyota Corolla to work.And there,in the conference room of his office,he will tell his small team,with his hands stretched wide in a managerial way,'We must think out of the box

He stares at the open textbook for hours and is distracted by the pain of the parallelogram, which is slanted for ever. His nails scratch the page to straighten its tired limbs. It affects him, the great arrogance of the Equilateral Triangle, the failed aspiration of the octagon to be a circle, the eternal suffocation of the denominator that has to bear the weight of the unjust numerator, the loneliness of Pluto. And the smallness of Mercury, always a mere dot next to a yellow sun. In this world, there is no respect for Mercury.

That a mystery must have a resolution is obviously not a requirement of nature. It is, in fact, another deceit of writers

The city is full of terrible actors. That is what historians never say about Madras, it is filled with hams.

And all our gods are not lies. They existed. All our gods, from the beginning of time, have been men with psychiatric conditions. And their delusions were so deep, they passed them on.

It affects him, the great arrogance of the Equilateral Triangle, the failed aspiration of the octagon to be a circle, the eternal suffocation of the denominator that has to bear the weight of the unjust numerator, the loneliness of Pluto. And the smallness of Mercury, always a mere dot next to a yellow sun. In this world, there is no respect for Mercury.

That breaks Ousep’s heart. To imagine the eternal boredom of his child. He wishes here to be no eternity, he wishes that even for his foes.

There is a crowd outside the main door, talking softly about the death as if they don’t want the dead man to know that he is gone.

What is it about life that even Ousep Chacko believes it is a lottery?

Ambition is the capacity for unhappiness.

The secret to happiness is not to have any expectations from people. ... Especially from the people who matter the most to you.

That is the quality of drunkards, they have a lot of friends. Because what men find most endearing in other men are their tragic flaws.

Unni said that there are thousands of Human Sentiments and many of them have not been named in any language. He said every person has at least one emotion that only he or she feels and no one else in the world can even imagine the feeling. 'Even you, Thoma, among the many things you feel there is one that only you can achieve and no other person in the world.

Thoma has never understood why this moment means so much to his mother. Criticism of tea is hardly a matter that should affect a clever woman like her. But Unni did tell him one day that in the words of some women there was great injustice that only other women could decipher. ‘It is not about the tea, Thoma, it is never about the tea.

It is an inevitability that masquerades as a decision. That is the way of a drunkard. He grants himself the dignity of choice, as if there is another option. But then is there really any choice in the world? Could it be that every human action is merely an inevitability masquerading as a human decision, life granting dignity to its addicts through the delusion of choice?

He realized in an instant that all the philosophers he had read, all the religions, even Einstein, even J. Krishnamurti, were saying the same thing in different ways - there is a shocking truth hiding behind the world that we see, behind the ordinary days of our lives. God is not a lie, but some kind of an abridged version of this reality, a beginner's course that has been misunderstood.

He said every delusion has an objective, and the objective of a delusion is not merely to colonize one brain but to transmit itself to as many brains as possible. That is the purpose of every delusion, that is how a delusion survives, that is how it succeeds. By spreading, maximizing its colony, like a virus. According to Unni, any philosophy that can be transmitted to another person is a delusion. If two people believe in the same idea of truth, it is a delusion. Truth is a successful delusion.

Unni had a very serious problem. He had this artistic objection to the heart symbol. He said it doesn’t look like a heart, he said it looks more like a read arse.

He decayed in a state of gentle happiness

It is an inevitability that masquerades as a decision. That is the way of a drunkard.

But an idea that overrates human character is bound to fail. Look around, in every way of the world, only ideas that do not overrate human nature succeed.

That is the quality of drunkards, they have a lot of friends. Because what men find most endearing in other men are their tragic flaws. That is why alcoholics never run out of friends.

Ousep looked carefully at the priest. A fifty-year-old virgin, a fully grown man in a white gown who believed that he was an elf who connected God to man, this clown thought Unni was strange.

A man appears on the road, stark naked, holding a can, and walking as if he is just passing through. When he is sure that all eyes are on him he empties the can over his head. It must be kerosene. He is gleaming now in the sun. He begins to jog, screaming that he will set himself on fire if the Tamils in Sri Lanka are not saved today. He runs through the small crowd asking for a matchbox, scattering the people, who are not sure whether they must flee or stand there and watch. ‘Matchbox,’ the naked man says as he jogs in large circles. When he approaches, Ousep, with great lethargy, hands him his matchbox. The man ignores him and runs ahead asking for a light. And he looks ecstatic when the policemen finally carry him away.

You must see this, Unni. In a world full of Sai Shankarans, you would have become king, if only you had waited. Look at Sai, he does not know why he lives but he lives, and he lives because he does not know why he must die. He will go on this way, doing his little things, enjoying the little victories, adopting morals invented by other people, secretly supporting the ideologies of third-rate men and, at dinner time, quoting the philosophies of the extraordinary whom people like him have never allowed to live in peace.

I was thinking, Mythili. All those syllables at the end of French words, all those syllables that are wasted because they are not pronounced by the French, where do they go?’ ‘Where do they go, Unni?’ ‘Theyjoin the underground Union of Insulted French Syllables.’ ‘Really?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘What does the underground union do?’ ‘The syllables try to influence mankind. Over centuries, over vast ages, they try to influence man. They give humans ideas, thoughts, doubts, eureka moments. All this to help man create something, a machine probably, that would have such a name, such a word that all the syllables in the Union of Insulted French Syllables would be included and pronounced. Humans think all of science is their creation, but no, Mythili. The insulted French syllables are the ones who are giving us those ideas.’ ‘You are mad, Unni.’ ‘The leader of the union is X.’ ‘X?’ ‘Yes, the most humiliated letter in French even today. There was a time when nobody in France used to pronounce it. Don’t laugh at X, Mythili. He waited for centuries and patiently fed ideas across many generations. And finally mankind discovered the X–ray. Now the French have to pronounce X. They have no choice.

What did you tell your father?’ ‘I want to go to Marina Beach tonight with Bindu and Gai.’ ‘Why?’ ‘To see Olive Ridley.’ ‘Who is he?’ ‘Olive Ridley is a turtle.’ ‘A turtle?’ ‘Endangered.’ ‘Why must you go to a beach at midnight to see a turtle?’ ‘The turtles swim in from the sea and walk on the beach at midnight to lay eggs.’ ‘Why are you interested in turtle eggs?’ ‘We have to ensure the eggs are safe. Or Olive Ridleys will become extinct.’ ‘Do boys, too, want to save the Olive Ridleys?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Mythili, just think about it. You. Midnight. Marina Beach. Boys. How could you even ask your father?

Ousep Chacko is a man who wants to be inconspicuous, who suffers when eyes are on him. But then the fate of shy people is that all their fears usually come true.

The fundamental quality of a delusion is that it is contagious. The very purpose of every delusion is to transmit itself to other brains. That is how a delusion survives. On the other hand, Mariamma Chacko, truth can never be transmitted, truth can never travel from one brain to another. Movement is a quality of delusion alone.

wants to be himself or if he wants peace.

the primary choice every man has to make is whether he wants to be himself or if he wants peace.

Somehow I feel that a person who thinks he has discovered the absolute truth will not be someone I know.

This indeed is then done, when the itching palate is repressed, when the bold tongue is restrained in silence, when the ear is closed to evil speaking, when the eye is forbidden to look at illicit things, when the hand is restrained lest it strike cruelly, the foot lest it go off wandering idly; when the heart is resisted lest it envy the good fortune of another’s happiness, lest it desire through avarice that which is not its own, lest it cut itself off by wrath from fraternal love, lest it arrogantly praise itself above others, lest it yield to seductive luxury through pleasure, lest it sink immoderately into grief, or in joy open the way to the tempter.

The tragic defeat of the unusual, and so the triumph of the normal.

motive is followed by its realization

We laugh because humour assaults us with a slice of truth and we sense danger.

that

Because to fool a person, it appears, you have to first fool yourself. That is at the heart of all human influences.

Men might not want their wives or daughters to have illicit sex, but they are often quite happy for the wives and daughters of other men to do so.

The boy will not be a failure, Mythili knows. She has seen the generations before. The boy will make it. As his father has said, he does not have the option of failure. He will crack at least one entrance exam, and he will one day have a nice house in a suburb of San Francisco, or in a suburb of a suburb of San Francisco. He will find a cute Tamil Brahmin wife and make her produce two sweet children. He will drive a Toyota Corolla to work. And there, in the conference room of his office, he will tell his small team, with his hands stretched wide in a managerial way, ‘We must think out of the box.