I came from a traditional family, and it was an exciting but challenging transition to move to America and live on my own. The world around me was suddenly so different. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni More Quotes by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni More Quotes From Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Everyone breathes in air, but it's a wise person who knows when to use that air to speak and when to exhale in silence. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni silencewiseair A dream is a telegram from the hidden world...Only a fool or an illiterate person ignores it. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni illiterate-persondreamworld Expectations are like hidden rocks in your path , All they do is trip you up Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni rockspathexpectations Each day has a color, a smell. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni smellcoloreach-day Each spice has a special day to it. For turmeric it is Sunday, when light drips fat and butter-colored into the bins to be soaked up glowing, when you pray to the nine planets for love and luck. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni glowingsundaylight I am buoyant and expansive and uncontainable--but I always was so, only I never knew it! Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni That's how it is sometimes when we plunge into the depths of our lives. No one can accompany us, not even those who would give up their hearts for our happiness. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni accompany-usgiving-upheart There was an unexpected freedom in finding out that one wasn't as important as one had always assumed! Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni unexpectedimportant Once I heard my mother say that each of us lives in a separate universe, one we have dreamed into being. We love pople when their dream coincides with ours, the way two cutout designs laid one on top of the other might match. But dream worlds are not static like cutouts; sooner or later they change shape, leading to misunderstanding, loneliness and loss of love. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni lonelinessmotherdream Can't you ever be serious?' I said, mortified. 'It's difficult,' he said. 'There's so little in life that's worth it. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni seriouskrishnalittles they say in the old tales that when a man and woman exchange looks the way we did, their spirits mingle. their gaze is a rope of gold binding each other. even if they never meet again, they carry a little of the other with them always. they can never forget, and they can never be wholly happy again Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni ropegoldmen The heart itself is beyond control. That is its power, and its weakness. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni beyond-controlweaknessheart I moved here when I was 20 to go to college. After I moved here, I became much more aware of the importance of the culture and literature to my life. Sometimes when you're immersed in something, you just don't notice it very much. Moving away makes you appreciate your culture. Living here, I've thought more and more about India, and what being Indian-American means to me. And it's made me incorporate things from Indian literature into my own writing. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni writingmeanmoving Sometimes -- she knows this from her own life -- to get to the other side, you must travel through grief. No detours are possible. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni detoursgriefsides Monday is the day of silence, day of the whole white mung bean, which is sacred to the moon. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni moonwhitemonday But maybe as I get older, I begin to see beauty where I least expected it before. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni expected Love comes like lightning, and disappears the same way. If you are lucky, it strikes you right. If not, you'll spend your life yearning for a man you can't have. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni lightningluckymen Girls have to be toughened so they can survive a world that presses harder on women. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni hardergirlworld Above us our palace waits, the only one I've ever needed. Its walls are space, its floor is sky, its center everywhere. We rise; the shapes cluster around us in welcome, dissolving and forming again like fireflies in a summer evening. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni fireflywallsummer I guess there's a lot we hope for that never happens. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni happens
