Midnight's Children Literature and Writing Quotes

Smile, smile, it is your history I am keeping in my head. Once it was set down in old lost books. Once I knew where there was a grave with pierced feet carved on the tombstone, which bled once a year. Even my memory is going now; but I know, although I can't read.' Illiteracy, dismissed with a flourish; literature crumbled beneath the rage of his sweeping hand. (1.1.22)

Padma—our plump Padma—is sulking magnificently. (She can't read and, like all fish-lovers, dislikes other people knowing anything she doesn't […]). (1.2.1)

'But what is so precious,' Padma demands, her right hand slicing the air updownup in exasperation, 'to need all this writing-s***ing?' (1.2.1)