Devdutt Pattanaik Quotations

Refusal to accept the flow of the world is the root of all misery.

I write on sacred stories, symbols and rituals of all cultures - European, American and Chinese - but my audiences, typically, like me to focus on India.

The crown could go to a person with the most talent. But how could ‘most talent’ be determined? So Indian society settled on age.

Mythology is a vast body of knowledge that has not been tapped.

In Greek mythology, the hero wants to be great, but the very concept does not exist in the Indian vocabulary. Yet it has become the global template. And it's a template that won't fit in India.

Medical training taught me the art of breaking down the complex maze of stories, symbols and rituals into clear systems. You could say that it helped me figure out the anatomy and physiology of mythology and its relevance in a society more incisively. How is it that no society can, or does, exist without them?

Neither death nor wisdom has a full stop. There are only commas-no destinations, only waiting rooms.

Mythology is a subjective truth. Every culture imagines life a certain way.

I have been doodling since childhood. I have a passion for illustrating but cannot paint or colour for that matter. I illustrate what I am trying to communicate through my writing. My images are like drawings in a science text book.

There is no such thing as an objective interpretation.