Manto Quotes

#1. I'm interested in things women do that aren't spoken about. Manto's stories let me breathe. They make me feel like less of a monster.

Mohsin Hamid

#2. And it is also possible, that Saadat Hasan dies, but Manto remains alive.

Saadat Hasan Manto

#3. Manto had earlier been prosecuted in Lahore for obscenity, and one of the words alleged to have been obscene was, breasts

Saadat Hasan Manto

#4. Some people kiss as if they were eating watermelon

Saadat Hasan Manto

#5. To those men who say that women from "good families" must come into the world of cinema, I have this question: What is it that you mean by "good?" A woman, who honestly puts her wares on display, and sells them without an intention to cheat, is such a woman not virtuous?

Saadat Hasan Manto

#6. If you find my stories dirty, the society you are living in is dirty. With my stories, I only expose the truth

Saadat Hasan Manto

#7. Today I want to dispel this myth, because it is absolutely not true .[ that ARV's work ] The pharmaceutical industry and those who have a vested interest in the drug industry fuels this propaganda.

Manto Tshabalala-Msimang

#8. Hindustan had become free. Pakistan had become independent soon after its inception but man was still slave in both these countries
slave of prejudice ... slave of religious fanaticism ... slave of barbarity and inhumanity.

Saadat Hasan Manto

#9. Allah sends down natural disasters to control population explosion. He encourages us to go to war, He creates Pakistan and Akhand Bharat. In doing this, He teaches humans new and innovative methods of birth control.

Saadat Hasan Manto

#10. Look this is hardly fair. You sold me impure petrol at black-market price and not even one shop could be put to the torch.

Saadat Hasan Manto

#11. For me, remembrance of things past has always been a waste of time, and what's the point of tears? I don't know. I've always been focussed on today. Yesterday and tomorrow hold no interest for me. What had to happen, did, and what will happen, will.

Saadat Hasan Manto

#12. We've been hearing this for some time now - Save India from this, save it from that. The fact is that India needs to be saved from the people who say it should be saved.

Saadat Hasan Manto

#13. When Hamid dropped Lata off at her house at nine that night, he felt hollow. The touch of her soft body was sheared from him like bark from a tree, and he spent the entire night tossing and turning.

Saadat Hasan Manto

#14. I feel like I am always the one tearing everything up and forever sewing it back together.

Saadat Hasan Manto

#15. There is not substantial data that AZT stops the transmission of HIV from mother to child. There is too much conflicting data to make concrete policy.

Manto Tshabalala-Msimang

#16. I can't stop working. The health of the nation depends on it.

Manto Tshabalala-Msimang

#17. I think garlic is absolutely critical. Lemon is absolutely critical to boost the immune system. Olive oil is absolutely critical ... just one teaspoon, it will last the whole month.

Manto Tshabalala-Msimang

#18. The field that cannot feed even its tiller Burn down every stalk that stands on it.

Saadat Hasan Manto

#19. He ate off dirty plates and was unfazed. His pillowcase was soiled and stank, but he never thought of changing it. Hamid thought long and hard, but he couldn't understand him. He often asked, 'Babuji, why aren't you revolted by dirtiness?

Saadat Hasan Manto

#20. Beetroot, garlic, lemon ... and buy a bottle of olive oil. All these things are very critical.

Manto Tshabalala-Msimang

#21. If you cannot bear these stories then the society is unbearable. Who am I to remove the clothes of this society, which itself is naked. I don't even try to cover it, because it is not my job, that's the job of dressmakers.

Saadat Hasan Manto

#22. I wondered why people consider escapism so bad, even the escapism on display right then. At first it might appear unseemly, but in the end its lack of pretension gives it its own sort of beauty.

Saadat Hasan Manto

#23. You would have realized that it wasn't Mumtaz, a muslim, a friend of yours, but a human being you had killed. I mean, if he was a bastard, by killing him you wouldn't have killed the bastard in him; similarly, assuming that he was a Muslim, you wouldn't have killed his Muslimness, but him.

Saadat Hasan Manto

#24. AZT was never meant to treat HIV. It was meant to treat cancer and, when it was discovered to be toxic, the drug companies stopped clinic trials of the drug because it was so toxic. Is this drug really one we want to use?

Manto Tshabalala-Msimang

#25. The fact is that some of the mice [tested on with AZT] have contracted cancer. It attacks bone marrow. It is very toxic.

Manto Tshabalala-Msimang

#26. Her pores were like those of an orange, its skin filled with juice, which, if you applied the slightest pressure, would squirt up into your eyes. She was that fresh.

Saadat Hasan Manto

#27. War has brought inflation even to the graveyard.

Saadat Hasan Manto

#28. I think the TAC was just a disgrace, a disgrace not only to the [health] department but a disgrace to the whole country. But I think, as South Africa, we really demonstrated that we are doing pretty well.

Manto Tshabalala-Msimang

#29. If a man has to make a woman the center of his love, why should he integrate animality into this sacred human emotion? ... Is love incompelete without it? ... Is love the name of physical excersize ?

Saadat Hasan Manto

#30. Raw garlic and a skin of the lemon - not only do they give you a beautiful face and skin but they also protect you from disease.

Manto Tshabalala-Msimang

#31. He catches the thieves that lie in the hearts of their pure and respectable wives. And he compares them to the purity in the heart of a whore in a brothel.

Saadat Hasan Manto

#32. We (the ANC government) have no plans to introduce the wholesale administration of these drugs in the public sector. ARVs are not a cure for Aids.

Manto Tshabalala-Msimang

#33. South Africa is the only country in the world who gives AZT to health workers for needle-stick injuries. It's very doubtful that we're doing the right thing.

Manto Tshabalala-Msimang

#34. But love, whether in Multan or on Siberia's icy tundra, whether in the winter or the summer, whether among the rich or the poor, whether among the beautiful or the ugly, whether among the crude or refined, love is always just love. There's no difference.

Saadat Hasan Manto

#35. I don't know how many [South Africans] with HIV would want to take anti-retrovirals.

Manto Tshabalala-Msimang

#36. Literature and film in my opinion are like saloons where bottles have no labels. I want to taste each one myself and figure out which is what. If I'm denied this by labelling, then my entertainment is considerably lessened.

Saadat Hasan Manto