---
name: "Arundhati Roy on the Deepest Measure of Success"
date: 2026-05-05
link: "https://www.themarginalian.org/2026/05/04/arundhati-roy-success/"
linkText: "themarginalian.org"
source: "The Marginalian"
topics:
  - quotes
  - general-delight
tags: [arundhati-roy, success, attention, values]
description: "Roy reframes success as a list of practiced verbs — to love, to be loved, to never forget your own insignificance — rather than an outcome."
---

Maria Popova lifts a passage from Arundhati Roy that resets what success is for: "To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you." Roy's measure is a set of ongoing verbs, not an outcome you cross off — and she lists them in an order that's hard to argue with. Worth printing out as a counterweight to the spreadsheet kind of life-keeping.