Quotes from Jhumpa Lahiri

A transformation, especially one that is deliberately sought, is often perceived as something disloyal, threatening.

We write books in a fixed moment in time, in a specific phase of our consciousness and development. That is why reading words written years ago feels alienating. You are no longer the person whose existence depended on the production of those words.

She calculates the Indian time on her hands. The tip of her thumb strikes each rung of the brown ladders etched onto the backs of her fingers, then stops at the middle of the third: it is nine and a half hours ahead in Calcutta, already evening, half past eight.

When I write in Italian, I think in Italian; to translate into English, I have to wake up another part of my brain. I don't like the sensation at all. I feel alienated. As if I'd run into a boyfriend I'd tired of, someone I'd left years earlier. He no longer appeals to me.

Why, as an adult, as a writer, am I interested in this new relationship with imperfection? What does it offer me? I would say a stunning clarity, a more profound self-awareness. Imperfection inspires invention, imagination, creativity. It stimulates. The more I feel imperfect, the more I feel alive.

Most of all I remember the three of them operating during that time as if they were a single person, sharing a single meal, a single body, a single silence, and a single fear. -When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine

a reminder that life is not always so serious, so formal, so complicated.

Pet names are a persistent remnant of childhood, a reminder that life is not always so serious, so formal, so complicated. They are a reminder, too, that one is not all things to all people. They

Whenever he is discouraged, I tell him that if I can survive on three continents, then there is no obstacle he cannot conquer.

They were all like siblings, Mr. Kapasi thought as they passed a row of date trees. Mr. and Mrs. Das behaved like an older brother and sister, not parents.

I start with very short pieces, usually no more than a handwritten page. I try to focus on something specific: a person, a moment, a place. I do what I ask my student to do when I teach creative writing. I explain to them that such fragments are the first steps to take before constructing a story. I think a writer should observe the real world before imagining a nonexistent one.

She was unprepared for the landscape to be so altered. For there to be no trace of that evening, forty autumns ago.

He waited for chaotic games to end, for shouts to subside. His favorite moments were when he was alone, or felt alone. Lying in bed in the morning, watching sunlight flickering like a restless bird on the wall.

He had forgotten the possibility of so many human beings in one space. The concentrated stench of so much life. He welcomed the sun on his skin, the absence of bitter cold. But it was winter in Calcutta. The people filling the platform, passengers and coolies, and vagrants for whom the station was merely a shelter, were bundled in woolen caps and shawls.

She wished the days and months ahead of her would end. But the rest of her life continued to present itself, time ceaselessly proliferating.

I think that the power of art is the power to wake us up, strike us to our depths, change us. What are we searching for when we read a novel, see a film, listen to a piece of music?We are searching, through a work of art, for something that alters us, that we aren't aware of before. We want to transform ourselves, just as Ovid's masterwork transformed me.

No parent ever called a child by his good name. Good names had no place within a family.

My grandfather always says that's what books are for," Ashoke said, using the opportunity to open the volume in his hands. "To travel without moving an inch.

Chi non appartiene a nessun posto specifico non puè tornare, in realtà, da nessuna parte. I concetti di esilio e di ritorno implicano un punto di origine, una patria. Senza una patria e senza una vera lingua madre, io vago per il mondo, anche dalla mia scrivania. Alla fine mi accorgo che non è stato un vero esilio, tutt'altro. Sono esiliata perfino dalla definizione di esilio.

Ghosh shook his head. 'You are still young. Free,' he said spreading his hands apart for emphasis. 'Do yourself a favor. Before it's too late, without thinking too much about it first, pack a pillow and a blanket and see as much of the world as you can. You will not regret it. One day it will be too late. 'My grandfather always says that's what books are for,' Ashoke said, using the opportunity to open the volume in his hands. 'To travel without moving an inch.

Pet names are a persistent remnant of childhood, a reminder that life is not always so serious, so formal, so complicated. They are a reminder, too, that one is not all things to all people. They all have pet names.

He was proud to have come alone to America. To learn it, as he once must have learned to stand and walk and speak. He'd wanted so much to leave Calcutta, not only for the sake of his education but also—he could admit this to himself now—to take a step that Udayan never would.

Ela tem o dom de aceitar a própria vida; conhecendo-a melhor, ele se dá conta de que ela nunca desejou ser outra pessoa a não ser ela mesma, nem ter sido criada em outro lugar, de algum outro jeito.

Dissecting my linguistic metamorphosis, I realize that I'm trying to get away from something, to free myself. I've been writing in Italian for almost two years, and I feel that I've been transformed, almost reborn.