Quotes from Jhumpa Lahiri

On Sundays he spends an hour occupied with his tins of shoe polishes and his three pairs of shoes, two black and one brown. The brown ones are the ones he'd been wearing when he'd first come to see her.

to every single person, two names. In Bengali the word for pet name is daknam, meaning, literally, the name by which one is called, by friends, family, and other intimates, at home and in other private, unguarded moments. Pet names are a persistent remnant of childhood, a reminder that life is not always so serious, so formal, so complicated.

At every session she would ask me to tell her something positive. Unfortunately my childhood harbors few happy memories. Instead I would tell her about the balcony of my apartment when the sun is shining and I'm having breakfast. And I would tell her how much I like to sit outside, pick up a warm pen in my hand, and write down a sentence.

Subhash was angry with himself for going along with it. For still needing to prove he could. He was sick of the fear that always rose up in him: that he would cease to exist, and that he and Udayan would cease to be brothers, were Subhash to resist him.

Quando la lingua con cui ci si identifica è lontana, si fa di tutto per tenerla viva.

I libri sono i mezzi migliori - privati, discreti, affidabili - per scavalcare la realtà.

No man wants a woman who dresses like a dishwasher.

Car horns, shrill and prolonged, blared one after another. Flashing sirens heralded endless emergencies, and a fleet of buses rumbled past, their doors opening and closing with a powerful hiss, throughout the night. The noise was constantly distracting, at times suffocating.

I take advantage of the long weekend in the fall and leave the city to clear my head, to enjoy the waning warmth in a nearby town and escape the daily routine. I arrive in a sunlit, peaceful spot. The arrangements are to my liking: the quiet hotel, the tasty breakfast, the pool that's empty until noon.

I pack a bag and catch a train from the central station. I stare up at all the destinations one might go, listed on the big board, and I think of all the places I might still visit, and how arbitrary one's own path is.

She has the gift of accepting her life; as he comes to know her, he realizes that she has never wished she were anyone other than herself, raised in any other place, in any other way. This

on the surface of the Grand Canal, my writing in Italian is something impalpable. Nebulous, like the fog. I'm afraid that the bridge between me and Italian doesn't, ultimately, exist. That it will remain, at best, a chimera.

Imparare una lingua straniera è il modo essenziale per integrarsi con gente nuova in un nuovo Paese. Rende possibile un rapporto. Senza la lingua non ci si può sentire una presenza legittima, rispettata. Si rimane senza voce, senza potere.

There had been a brittle quality to her, something unyielding, a young person who carried about her a premonition of old age.

L'inglese e l'italiano sembrano i punti più vicini. Avendo in comune molte parole di origine latina, condividono un certo territorio. Inutile dire che mi capita spesso in italiano di incontrate una parola che conosco già grazie all'equivalente inglese. Non posso negare che la mia comprensione dell'inglese mi aiuti. Ma può ingannarmi.

No hospital, porém um leve movimento do bebê a faz lembrar que, tecnicamente, não está sozinha. Estranha o fato de que sua criança nascerá num lugar onde as pessoas geralmente entram para sofrer ou para morrer.

This stationery store has been one of my haunts for years. When I was a young girl I'd go there to get what I needed for school, then for college, and now for teaching. Every purchase, however mundane, makes me happy. Each item validates my life somehow.

L'inglese rimane il presente: permanente, indelebile. la matrigna non mi abbandona. Per quanto sia una lingua imposta, mi ha regalato una voce pulita, corretta, per sempre.

By the time the paramedics had arrived she was dead from an aneurysm. She was in her thirties, unmarried, perpetually sipping herbal tea.

When he pictured her so many thousands of miles away he plummeted, so much so that he had an overwhelming urge to wrap his arms around her, to freeze with her, even for an instant, in an embrace witnessed by his favorite Surya.

Una lingua nuova è quasi una vita nuova, grammatica e sintassi ti rifondo, scivoli dentro un'altra logica e un altro sentimento.

Credo che leggere in una lingua straniera sia il modo più intimo di leggere.

Rapidamente, simultaneamente, ele se apaixona por Maxine, pela casa e pelo modo de vida de Gerald e Lydia, pois conhecê-la e amá-la é conhecer e amar todas essas coisas.

As disappointed as I am, I'm not surprised that my beloved stationery store no longer exists, the rents must be sky-high around here, and furthermore, who buys notebooks in the end? My students can barely write by hand, they press buttons to learn about life and explore the world. Their thoughts emerge on screens and dwell inside clouds that have no substance, no shortage of space.