Quotes from Jhumpa Lahiri

Avoiding puddles, stepping over mats of hyacinth leaves that remained in place. Breathing the dank air.

Havia a ansiedade de que uum dia não se sucedesse ao outro, junto com a certeza de que certamente se sucederia. Era como prender a respiração, como Udayan tentara fazer na baixada. E, no entanto, de alguma maneira ela estava respirando. Assim como o tempo ficava parado, mas também passava, alguma outra parte de seu corpo que lhe era inconsciente estava agora extraindo oxigêncio, obrigando-os a continuar.

When I began writing stories as a child, I wrote copies of what I read, and in many respects, that is what I've have continued doing, in only a slightly less obvious way. The illusion of artistic freedom is just that, an illusion. No words are "my words"—I merely arrange and use them in a certain way.

Containers may be the destiny of many in that they hold our remains after death. But this novel reminds us that narrative refuses to stay put, and that the effort of telling stories only pins things down so far. In the end it is language itself that is the most problematic container; it holds too much and too little at the same time.

To translate is to alter one's linguistic coordinates, to grab on to what has slipped away, to cope with exile.

Once back on Pemberton Road, in the modest house that is suddenly mammoth, there is nothing to remind them; in spite of the hundred or so relatives they've just seen, they feel as if they are the only Gangulis in the world. The people they have grown up with will never see this life, of this they are certain.

Today when I wake up I stay put. I don't go to the bathroom to weigh myself or to the kitchen to drink a glass of tepid water before preparing the coffeepot. The city doesn't beckon or lend me a shoulder today. Maybe it knows I'm about to leave.

It was only by self-translating that I finally understood what Paul Valéry meant when he said that a work of art was never finished, only abandoned... The act of self-translation enables the author to restore a previously published work to its most vital and dynamic state—that of a work-in-progress—and to repair and recalibrate as needed.

When you're in love, you want to live forever. You want the emotion, the excitement you feel to last. Reading in Italian arouses a similar longing in me. I don't want to die, because my death would mean the end of my discovery of the language. Because every day there will be a new word to learn. Thus true love can represent eternity.

In a sense I'm used to a kind of linguistic exile. My mother tongue, Bengali, is foreign in America. When you live in a country where your own language is considered foreign, you can feel a continuous sense of estrangement. You speak a secret, unknown language, lacking any correspondence to the environment. An absence that creates a distance within you.

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.

He stops to wait for her, but she has a sudden burst of energy, passing him. On and on she sprints, unobstructed, kicking up her heels at the water's edge. Dark hair to her chin, rearranged by the wind, obscuring her face. Just when he thinks she will have the energy to run forever, to escape his sight, she pauses. Turning back, breathing hard, her hand on her hip, making sure he is there.

Our meals, our actions, were only a shadow of what had already happened there, a lagging ghost of where Mr. Pirzada really belonged. At

No doubt he thought: This woman owns thousands of books and yet she's unwilling to lend me even one. But I treasure this volume, and I doubt that he'd be able to appreciate a single word of it.

Once, within this enclave, there were two ponds, oblong, side by side. Behind them was a lowland spanning a few acres.

Both her parents came from humble backgrounds; botht heir grandmothers had given up the gold on their arms to put roofs over their families' heads and food on their plates. This mentality, as tiresome as it sometimes felt, reassured Sudha, for it was something her parents understood and respected about each other, and she suspected it was the glue that held them together.

And she refused to go to that miserable place that Julian had dragged her to so many times, to hope for a thing that was unchangeable.

If their mother complained that he hadn't brought back enough, he'd say, Better to eat a small piece of fish with flavor than a large one without. He'd witnessed a famine of devastating proportions, never taking a single meal for granted.

It was Durga Pujo, the city's most anticipated days. The stores, the sidewalks, were overflowing. At the ends of certain alleys, or in gaps among buildings, she saw the pandals. Durga armed with her weapons, flanked by her four children, depicted and worshiped in so many versions. Made of plaster, made of clay. She was resplendent, formidable. A lion helped to conquer the demon at her feet. She was a daughter visiting her family, visiting the city, transforming it for a time.

She was like that, excited and delighted by little things, crossing her fingers before any remotely unpredictable event, like tasting a new flavor of ice cream, or dropping a letter in a mailbox. It was a quality he did not understand. It made him feel stupid, as if the world contained hidden wonders he could not anticipate, or see. He

Mr. Kapasi had never thought of his job in such complimentary terms. To him it was a thankless occupation. He found nothing noble in interpreting people's maladies

She had generated alternative versions of herself. She had insisted at brutal cost on these conversions. Layering her life, only to strip it bare. Only to be alone in the end. Her life had been paired down to its solitary components.

He had dreamed of being an interpreter for diplomats and dignitaries, resolving conflicts between people and nations, settling disputes of which he alone could understand both sides.

Stretched to the breaking point by all that now stood between them, but at the same time refusing to break.