She had listened to him, partly sympathetic, partly horrified. For it was one thing for her to reject her background, to be critical of her family's heritage, another to hear it from him. Jhumpa Lahiri More Quotes by Jhumpa Lahiri More Quotes From Jhumpa Lahiri I always think first about the nature of the story. When I had the idea for 'The Namesake,' I felt that it had to be a novel - it couldn't work as a story. Jhumpa Lahiri stories ideas thinking With children the clock is reset. We forget what came before Jhumpa Lahiri clock forget children Ive inherited a sense of that loss from my parents because it was so palpable all the time while I was growing up, the sense of what my parents had sacrificed in moving to the United States, and yet at the same time, building a life here and all that that entailed. Jhumpa Lahiri growing-up loss moving War will bring the revolution; revolution will stop the war. Jhumpa Lahiri revolution war It's easy to set a story anywhere if you get a good guidebook and get some basic street names, and some descriptions, but, for me, yes, I am indebted to my travels to India for several of the stories. Jhumpa Lahiri india names stories 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 ongoing groups relation One hand, five homes. A lifetime in a fist. Jhumpa Lahiri fists home hands 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 journey mother waiting On a sticky August evening two weeks before her due date, Ashima Ganguli stands in the kitchen of a Central Square apartment, combining Rice Krispies and Planters peanuts and chopped red onion in bowl. Jhumpa Lahiri august squares two 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 writing book While the astronauts, heroes forever, spent mere hours on the moon, I have remained in this new world for nearly thirty years. I know that my achievement is quite ordinary. I am not the only man to seek his fortune far from home, and certainly I am not the first. Still, there are times I am bewildered by each mile I have traveled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept. As ordinary as it all appears, there are times when it is beyond my imagination." (from "The Third and Final Continent") Jhumpa Lahiri moon hero home I don't know why, but the older I get the more interested I get in my parents' marriage. And it's interesting to be married yourself, too, because there is an inevitable comparison. Jhumpa Lahiri parents-marriage married interesting Relationships do not preclude issues of morality. Jhumpa Lahiri morality issues I've seen novels that have grown out of one story in a collection. But it hasn't occurred to me to take any of those stories and build on them. They seem very finished for me, so I don't feel like going back and dredging them up. Jhumpa Lahiri dredging novel stories 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 fans mirrors thinking 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 ideas thinking There were times Ruma felt closer to her mother in death than she had in life, an intimacy born simply of thinking of her so often, of missing her. But she knew that this was an illusion, a mirage, and that the distance between them was now infinite, unyielding. Jhumpa Lahiri distance mother thinking Language, identity, place, home: these are all of a piece - just different elements of belonging and not-belonging. Jhumpa Lahiri place language identity home You can't have a hit every time. The main thing is to keep on working and not be afraid to take risks. It's better to do something that's not perfect and successful every time. It's important to be fearless and move forward, to learn from what went wrong. Jhumpa Lahiri better you not-perfect time From the beginnings of literature, poets and writers have based their narratives on crossing borders, on wandering, on exile, on encounters beyond the familiar. The stranger is an archetype in epic poetry, in novels. The tension between alienation and assimilation has always been a basic theme. Jhumpa Lahiri always tension poetry literature
