Top 60 Sandhya Menon Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “And then she smiled a smile so dazzling, Rishi tripped over his own feet.”

— Sandhya Menon

2. “You. Are. Beautiful. Lajawab. My only worry is that I might not be able to do you justice.”

— Sandhya Menon

3. “But with Sweetie time passed in gentle waves. A conversation with her was like a warm hug and a cup of hot coca on a cold day – comforting, familiar, a place you never wanted to leave.”

— Sandhya Menon

4. “Just yesterday she said Elliot and she had lain on the hilly green by the astronomy building and just watched the clouds float by. The clouds. Float by. Like Isha had ever cared about floating clouds before.”

— Sandhya Menon

5. “I feel like I need to speak out, because if no one speaks out, if no one says, this is me, this is what I believe in, and this is why I’m different, and this is why that’s okay, then what’s the point? What’s the point of living in this beautiful, great melting pot where everyone can dare be anything they want to be?”

— Sandhya Menon

6. “It was his damn fool heart. Ever optimistic, always looking for a sliver of sunshine in a sky clotted with thunderclouds.”

— Sandhya Menon

7. “No. It’s not. When I walk down the road, people immediately make judgments about me based on my body size. That doesn’t happen to you guys, no matter how self-conscious you might be about your bodies. You’re still thin, and you get to exist in spaces without constantly being found wanting.”

— Sandhya Menon

8. “And then he grabbed her around the waist and pulled her to him, one hand moving up to cup her cheek, thumb just under her jaw while his fingers tangled in her hair. Rishi kissed her with purpose, with meaning, like he believed this was exactly where they were supposed to be in this moment. He kissed her till she believed it too.”

— Sandhya Menon

9. “Tina auntie had a rating system of the prettiest desi girls and handsomest desi boys in her head at all times. She was like a walking Indian version of People magazine. Needless to say, Sweetie did not rank anywhere on her list. In fact, she was probably on some anti-list of some kind, knowing Tina auntie. “Top Ten Fat Feminist Desi Girls to Keep Your Boys Away from Before They Go Over to the Dark Side” or “Five Girls Whose Bodies Do Not Match Their Pretty Faces – BEWARE.”

— Sandhya Menon

10. “The girl was like a closed book – with some of the pages ripped out.”

— Sandhya Menon

11. “He already knew the first time he saw Dimple’s picture that their story would become a sort of legend.”

— Sandhya Menon

12. “If the word “fat” makes you cringe, I hope you’ll stop and examine why that is. What do you think when you see the word “thin”? My guess is nothing, or at least, nothing bad. So then, is there anything inherently wrong with being fat? Or have we just been conditioned to see the words “worthless” or “lazy” or “bad” instead of “fat”?”

— Sandhya Menon

13. “Samir leveled a gaze at her. ‘Sometimes, being in control is the only thing you have going for you.”

— Sandhya Menon

14. “This is our life. We get to decide the rules. We get to say what goes and what stays, what matters and what doesn’t.”

— Sandhya Menon

15. “She wept for her hardheadedness, and for a world that couldn’t just let her be both, a woman in love and a woman with a career, without flares of guilt and self-doubt seeping in and wreaking havoc.”

— Sandhya Menon

16. “The thing was just... she’d met him too early in her life. That was the cruelest of things. It wasn’t that Rishi was wrong for her. It was that he was too right.”

— Sandhya Menon

17. “She set her book carefully down, dog-earing a corner of her page with love.”

— Sandhya Menon

18. “Dimple opened her mouth to say that, yeah, in her opinion misogyny was complicated. Mainly because of the way it was integrated into the very fabric of society, which made it hard to see when a guy was being a total d-bag to you.”

— Sandhya Menon

19. “Kiran was one of those guys who thought Jaya’s X chromosome stood for “xplain things to me.”

— Sandhya Menon

20. “Rishi was a naturally good friend, she could tell, the kind of guy who thought your every fight was his as well.”

— Sandhya Menon

21. “She wept for her hardheadedness, and for a world that couldn’t just let her be both, a woman in love and a woman with a career, without flares of guilt and self-doubt seeping in and wrecking havoc. No one she knew had balanced both. There was either work or love. Wanting both felt like a huge ask, it felt like wishing for hot ice cream or a bitter sugar cube.”

— Sandhya Menon

22. “The one thing she’d always had, the one thing she’d hung on to in spite of everything she’d been told about herself – that she was ugly, that she was lazy, that no one would love her until she was thin, that she wasn’t a serious athlete because she was fat – was her self-respect.”

— Sandhya Menon

23. “No, she just stomped on your heart and used the pieces for confetti at her I-have-a-new-boyfriend party.”

— Sandhya Menon

24. “There were few things that made her feel lonelier than conversations with her own mother.”

— Sandhya Menon

25. “Sometimes I dream in watercolour.”

— Sandhya Menon

26. “But listen, people can change all the time. Maybe not in big, profound ways, but in little, incremental ways that end up changing essential parts of them anyway. It’s like a Rubik’s Cube – you start with one line at a time, and then everything begins to fit together.”

— Sandhya Menon

27. “Dimple could see, flush from the endorphins of a great performance, why actors and performers got addicted to this kind of thing. It had always seemed unfathomable to her, choosing a career where all you did was put yourself out in front of hundreds or thousands of people and risked rejection in real time. But if they felt even half of what she was feeling now when it went well...”

— Sandhya Menon

28. “When they finally pulled apart, Rishi’s mouth tingling still, Dimple smiled shyly and looked down at their hands, entwined between them on the bench. “So,” she said softly. “That was unexpected.” He leaned over and kissed her forehead, like it was the most natural thing to do. Was this going to be their thing now, casual kissing? He hoped so. “Unexpected but awesome.” Rishi paused. “Right?” She laughed and looked up at him. “Definitely.” He grinned, his heart soaked in happy.”

— Sandhya Menon

29. “Did you know each other from outside of this class?” Rishi felt something hot pressing its weight against his diaphragm. Your spirits are already friends. That was it, he thought. Even though this was the first day he’d spent any kind of extended time with Dimple, he felt like he already knew her. Like they were continuing a conversation they’d left off.”

— Sandhya Menon

30. “How was she, a nineteen-year-old, supposed to know what Dimple Shah the thirty-five-year-old might want?”

— Sandhya Menon

31. “Geeks are smart and talented and passionate. I don’t think that’s a bad thing.”

— Sandhya Menon

32. “She’d say this for him: He had no guile.”

— Sandhya Menon

33. “Pinky Kumar knew who she was – a social justice warrior. She wore that metaphorical badge with pride, laughing at those anonymous Internet trolls who used the phrase as a slur. What was wrong with being passionate and fiery and outraged? What was wrong with wanting the world to change, to expand its collective mind, to dig a little to find the last dregs of empathy it could find?”

— Sandhya Menon

34. “Seriously? That’s what you think I should be relegating my brain space to? Looking nice? Like, if I don’t make the effort to look beautiful, my entire existence is nullified? Nothing else matters-not my intellect, not my personality or my accomplishments; my hopes and dreams mean nothing if I’m not wearing eyeliner?”

— Sandhya Menon

35. “If this was how Rishi Patel showed his interest in her, if this was him wooing her, she wanted more. More, more, more.”

— Sandhya Menon

36. “Rishi kissed her with purpose, with meaning, like he believed this was exactly where they were supposed to be in this moment. He kissed her till she believed it too.”

— Sandhya Menon

37. “Maybe this was how it would begin, her transformation from Sweetie the Softie to Sweetie the Sassy: one statement at a time. Watch out, world. I’m coming.”

— Sandhya Menon

38. “Her body conveyed anger like a second language; she must have had a lot of practice.”

— Sandhya Menon

39. “Huh. We’ll be together the entire semester. Every class.” He said it abruptly.”

— Sandhya Menon

40. “She was constantly being forced to think of herself as the before picture, but when she spoke to her cousin, she saw that the after picture could include her just as she was right now.”

— Sandhya Menon

41. “It was sort of nice that she didn’t need to explain the hovering, how it really came from a place of love. Rishi got that this was just what moms and dads did in their world. Dimple.”

— Sandhya Menon

42. “Dimple pointed the camera at the statue.”

— Sandhya Menon

43. “There was something about people who were that secure; they made you feel better about yourself, like they accepted you for everything you were, imperfections and all.”

— Sandhya Menon

44. “Eating was so fraught when you were fat: If you ate something unhealthy, thin people would say it was no wonder you were fat. But if you ate something healthy, they’d roll their eyes, laugh, and say, “Yeah, right.”

— Sandhya Menon

45. “And they’re still so intricately connected to us. We have their names, their rituals, their traditions. Their dreams sit behind our eyelids. I think it’s beautiful.”

— Sandhya Menon

46. “I watched Papa’s hands as he talked about his work, and I realized something: He cared about his at-risk youth just as much as Sahil’s mom and dad cared about the state of higher education in our country. The difference was, because of their education and fancy degrees, they could afford to pay money to contribute to their cause. Papa’s work had to be in person; his donation was his time, his family, and himself.”

— Sandhya Menon

47. “Hello, future wife,” he said, his voice bubbling with glee. “I can’t wait to get started on the rest of our lives!”

— Sandhya Menon

48. “Love? Does love make you feel ill, like you’re being tossed about on a stormy sea? Does it steal your sleep and make you feel like your insides are on fire?”

— Sandhya Menon

49. “With a lurch Rishi realized his brain was also diverting blood flow to other parts of his body. He immediately began to think of Nani, his grandmother with the hairy mole on her neck jowls. Yep. That did it. Whew. Crisis averted.”

— Sandhya Menon

50. “He wondered if he should feel a stab of jealousy – Dimple bonding so well with his muscled, much cooler younger brother – but all he felt was this warm, almost gooey feeling in his chest. Like his heart was wrapped in microwaved Nutella.”

— Sandhya Menon