Top 35 Alka Joshi Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “The measure of us isn’t in the day-to-day. And it’s not in our past or our future. It’s in the fundamental changes we make within ourselves over a lifetime. Samaj-jao?”

— Alka Joshi

2. “Be humble for you are made of earth Be noble for you are made of stars. – SERBIAN PROVERB.”

— Alka Joshi

3. “He deserves paradise who makes his companions laugh.”

— Alka Joshi

4. “When the Goddess of Wealth comes to give you her blessing, you shouldn’t leave the room to wash your face. – Hindu Proverb.”

— Alka Joshi

5. “A wise man to the rest of the world is a nobody at home.”

— Alka Joshi

6. “The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway. Honesty and transparency make you vulnerable. Be honest and transparent anyway. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway. Give the world the best you have and you may get hurt. Give the world your best anyway. – MOTHER TERESA.”

— Alka Joshi

7. “The one-eyed man is king among the blind,” I replied, smiling.”

— Alka Joshi

8. “What is the use of crying when the birds have eaten the whole farm?”

— Alka Joshi

9. “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind?”

— Alka Joshi

10. “Success was ephemeral – and fluid – as I’d found out the hard way. It came. It went. It changed you from the outside, but not from the inside.”

— Alka Joshi

11. “The traveler has to knock at every alien door to come to his own, and one has to wander through all the outer worlds to reach the innermost shrine at the end. – From the poem Journey Home by Rabindranath Tagore When the Goddess of Wealth comes to give you her blessing, you shouldn’t leave the room to wash your face. – Hindu Proverb.”

— Alka Joshi

12. “If you want the rose, you must put up with the thorn. – HINDU PROVERB.”

— Alka Joshi

13. “People are more gullible and less compassionate than any of us want to believe.”

— Alka Joshi

14. “In India, individual shame did not exist. Humiliation spread, as easily as oil on wax paper, to the entire family, even to distant cousins, uncles, aunts, nieces and nephews. The rumormongers made sure of that. Blame lay heavily in my chest. Had I not deserted my marriage, Radha would not have suffered so much, and Maa and Pitaji would not have been so powerless against an entire village.”

— Alka Joshi

15. “Success was ephemeral – and fluid – as I’d found out the hard way. It came. It went. It changed you from the outside, but not from the inside. Inside, I was still the same girl who dreamed of a destiny greater than she was allowed. Did I really need the house to prove I had skill, talent, ambition, intelligence? What if –.”

— Alka Joshi

16. “Not once had I believed him capable of change. But if I could change, why couldn’t he?”

— Alka Joshi

17. “Just then, my mother’s words echoed in my head: stretch your legs only as far as your bed. I was getting too far ahead of myself.”

— Alka Joshi

18. “In India, individual shame did not exist. Humiliation spread, as easily as oil on wax paper, to the entire family, even to distant cousins, uncles, aunts, nieces and nephews.”

— Alka Joshi

19. “Being a woman is difficult. I can see why my mother didn’t like her own gender. We can do so much. Give so much. But not everyone wants what we’re offering. And in the end, we’re left with... pieces of a whole. Shards. Splinters. Chips. Pick them up, they cut our hands. Leave them on the ground, they cut our feet. It’s hard for us to just walk away.”

— Alka Joshi

20. “At this moment, sitting in front of this good, sensible woman, I wanted the thing I hated most in this world. Sympathy. Even more, I hated that I wanted it. Hated myself for my weakness.”

— Alka Joshi

21. “Independence changed everything. Independence changed nothing.”

— Alka Joshi

22. “If I had learned anything from them, it was this: only a fool lives in water and remains an enemy of the crocodile.”

— Alka Joshi

23. “The poor weren’t the only ones imprisoned by their caste.”

— Alka Joshi

24. “My younger sister was lively and curious, which was good, but she was also untamed – and that could be a dangerous combination.”

— Alka Joshi

25. “Why am I the one who must find the solution to a problem I didn’t cause?”

— Alka Joshi

26. “There’s more power in keeping a secret than in betraying it.”

— Alka Joshi

27. “Samir Singh frequented the pleasure houses of Hazi and Nasreen whenever he had business in Agra. There, Muslim noblemen, Bengali businessmen and Hindu doctors and lawyers smoked hookahs, and ate and drank as the courtesans recited ancient poetry, sang sweet, nostalgic ghazals and performed.”

— Alka Joshi

28. “She expected from me what wasn’t mine to give. Forgiveness. Absolution. I was a stranger.”

— Alka Joshi

29. “What independence had changed was our people. You could see it in the way they stood, chests puffed, as if they could finally allow themselves to breathe. You saw it in the way they walked – purposefully, pridefully – to their temples. The way they haggled – more boldly than before – with the vendors in the bazaar.”

— Alka Joshi

30. “Before independence, these objects had signified my ladies’ admiration for the British. Now, they signified their scorn. My ladies had changed nothing but the reasons for their pretense. If I had learned anything from them, it was this: only a fool lives in water and remains an enemy of the crocodile.”

— Alka Joshi

31. “He was committed to his ideals. Unfortunately, high ideals came with a price.”

— Alka Joshi

32. “I would leave behind the useless apologies for my disobedience. I would leave behind the yearning to rewrite my past.”

— Alka Joshi

33. “I’ve come to think that some people are meant to be in our lives for a certain length of time and not a moment more.”

— Alka Joshi

34. “I should have known that Moti-Lal would figure it out. More than once, he’s told me selling gold requires an insight into human nature. He says you must be able to discern the intensity of a customer’s desire by looking into their eyes. That will tell you what to show, what to hold back, and how much the customer is willing to part with.”

— Alka Joshi

35. “I turn the pages carefully. Our tribal elders may not know how to read, but they revere those who can. “Books contain magic,” they say.”

— Alka Joshi