The trouble is that once America goes off to war, it can't very well return without having fought one. If it doesn't find its enemy, for the sake of the enraged folks back home, it will have to manufacture one. Once war begins, it will develop a momentum, a logic and a justification of its own, and we'll lose sight of why it's being fought in the first place.

— Arundhati Roy

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "The trouble is that once America goes off to war, it can't very well return without having fought one. If it doesn't find its enemy, for the sake of the enraged folks back home, it will have to manufacture one. Once war begins, it will develop a momentum, a logic and a justification of its own, and we'll lose sight of why it's being fought in the first place." in the context of "The Algebra of Infinite Justice September 29, (2001) http://web.archive.org/web/20011006030417/http://website.lineone.net/~jon.simmons/roy/010929ij.htm." to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Source: Wikiquote: "Arundhati Roy" (Quotes, Articles) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Arundhati Roy

About Arundhati Roy

Arundhati Roy (born 24 November 1961) is an Indian writer and social activist