Jhumpa Lahiri Quotes - Page 2

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Books Mothers Parents Writing

It didn't matter that I wore clothes from Sears; I was still different. I looked different. My name was different. I wanted to pull away from the things that marked my parents as being different.

Jhumpa Lahiri

Names, Clothes, Parent

19 Copy quote
And yet he had loved her. A Bookish girl heedless of her beauty, unconscious of her effect. She'd been prepared to live her life alone but from the moment he'd known her he'd needed her.

Jhumpa Lahiri

Girl, Her Beauty, Moments

7 Copy quote
They were things for which it was impossible to prepare but which one spent a lifetime looking back at, trying to accept, interpret, comprehend. Things that should never have happened, that seemed out of place and wrong, these were what prevailed, what endured, in the end.

Jhumpa Lahiri

Trying, Impossible, Lifetime

Jhumpa Lahiri (2004). “The Namesake: A Novel”, p.262, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

17 Copy quote
Do what I will never do.

Jhumpa Lahiri

Jhumpa Lahiri (2004). “The Namesake: A Novel”, p.38, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

4 Copy quote
You remind me of everything that followed.

Jhumpa Lahiri

Namesake

Jhumpa Lahiri (2004). “The Namesake: A Novel”, p.124, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

6 Copy quote
The thought of Christmas overwhelms him. He no longer looks forward to the holiday; he wants only to be on the other side of the season. His impatience makes him feel that he is incontrovertibly, finally, an adult.

Jhumpa Lahiri

Holiday, Adults, Looks

FaceBook post by Jhumpa Lahiri from Dec 19, 2012

14 Copy quote
I've never had Internet access. Actually, I have looked at things on other people's computers as a bystander. A few times in my life I've opened email accounts, twice actually, but it's something I don't want in my life right now.

Jhumpa Lahiri

Bystanders, Internet Access, People

31 Copy quote
Each day she removes a small portion of the unwanted things in people's lives, though all of it, she thinks, was previously wanted, once useful. She feels the sun scorching the back of her neck. The heat is at its worst now, the rains still a few months away. The task satisfies her. It passes the time.

Jhumpa Lahiri

Rain, Thinking, People

Jhumpa Lahiri (2013). “The Lowland”, p.189, A&C Black

4 Copy quote
I dream of writing a book like LOVERS some day. It is so spare but so rich. It is history made intimate, and a masterpiece of compression.

Jhumpa Lahiri

Dream, Book, Writing

4 Copy quote
It interests me to imagine characters shifting from one situation and one location to another for whatever the circumstances may be.

Jhumpa Lahiri

Character, May, Location

4 Copy quote
The urge to convert experience into a group of words that are in a grammatical relation to one another is the most basic, ongoing impulse of my life.

Jhumpa Lahiri

Groups, Ongoing, Relation

"Jhumpa Lahiri Was Abandoned by Her Editor" by Mark Follman, www.motherjones.com. March 21, 2012.

4 Copy quote
War will bring the revolution; revolution will stop the war.

Jhumpa Lahiri

War, Revolution

Jhumpa Lahiri (2013). “The Lowland”, p.43, A&C Black

4 Copy quote
Most people trusted in the future, assuming that their preferred version of it would unfold. Blindly planning for it, envisioning things that weren't the case. This was the working of the will. This was what gave the world purpose and direction. Not what was there but what was not.

Jhumpa Lahiri

People, Purpose, World

4 Copy quote
Relationships do not preclude issues of morality.

Jhumpa Lahiri

Issues, Morality

4 Copy quote
The knowledge of death seemed present in both sisters-it was something about the way they carried themselves, something that had broken too son and had not mended, marking them in spite of their lightheartedness.

Jhumpa Lahiri

Son, Broken, Way

FaceBook post by Jhumpa Lahiri from Dec 31, 2010

4 Copy quote
If I stop to think about fans, or best-selling, or not best-selling, or good reviews, or not-good reviews, it just becomes too much. It's like staring at the mirror all day.

Jhumpa Lahiri

Thinking, Mirrors, Fans

4 Copy quote
But she has gathered that Americans, in spite of their public declarations of affection, in spite of their miniskirts and bikinis, in spite of their hand-holding on the street and lying on top of each other on the Cambridge Common, prefer their privacy.

Jhumpa Lahiri

Lying, Hands, Bikinis

Jhumpa Lahiri (2004). “The Namesake: A Novel”, p.3, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

6 Copy quote
My parents had an arranged marriage, as did so many other people when I was growing up. My father came and had a life in the United States one way and my mother had a different one, and I was very aware of those things. I continue to wonder about it, and I will continue to write about it.

Jhumpa Lahiri

Mother, Growing Up, Father

4 Copy quote
The most compelling narrative, expressed in sentences with which I have no chemical reaction, or an adverse one, leaves me cold.

Jhumpa Lahiri

Narrative, Cold, Chemical Reactions

"My Life's Sentences". opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com. March 17, 2012.

4 Copy quote
In fiction, plenty do the job of conveying information, rousing suspense, painting characters, enabling them to speak. But only certain sentences breathe and shift about, like live matter in soil.

Jhumpa Lahiri

Jobs, Character, Suspense

"Jhumpa Lahiri Was Abandoned by Her Editor" by Mark Follman, March 21, 2012.

6 Copy quote
I would not send a first story anywhere. I would give myself time to write a number of stories.

Jhumpa Lahiri

Writing, Numbers, Giving

8 Copy quote
One hand, five homes. A lifetime in a fist.

Jhumpa Lahiri

Home, Hands, Fists

Jhumpa Lahiri (2004). “The Namesake: A Novel”, p.167, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

4 Copy quote
Try to remember it always," he said once Gogol had reached him, leading him slowly back across the breakwater, to where his mother and Sonia stood waiting. "Remember that you and I made this journey together to a place where there was nowhere left to go.

Jhumpa Lahiri

Mother, Journey, Waiting

Jhumpa Lahiri (2004). “The Namesake: A Novel”, p.187, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

7 Copy quote
She has given birth to vagabonds. She is the keeper of all these names and numbers now, numbers she once knew by heart, numbers and addresses her children no longer remember.

Jhumpa Lahiri

Children, Heart, Names

FaceBook post by Jhumpa Lahiri from May 06, 2011

13 Copy quote
When I sit down to write, I don't think about writing about an idea or a given message. I just try to write a story which is hard enough.

Jhumpa Lahiri

Writing, Thinking, Ideas

4 Copy quote

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Born: July 11, 1967
Occupation: Author
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