66 Jhumpa Lahiri Quotes for You to Enjoy

Jhumpa Lahiri

American Author

Born: Jul 11, 1967

Life Me Myself Think Writing You

Related authors: F. Scott Fitzgerald Frederick Douglass Helen Keller Henry David Thoreau Joyce Meyer Mark Twain Og Mandino Zig Ziglar

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

Alienation Borders Crossing Poetry Poets Writers Tension Between Beyond Narratives Always Been Exile Encounters Familiar Beginnings Wandering Literature Epic Theme Epic Poetry Stranger Novels Based Basic Assimilation

Language, identity, place, home: these are all of a piece - just different elements of belonging and not-belonging. Jhumpa Lahiri

Home Language Piece Identity Just Different Place Different Elements Elements Belonging

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

Time You Risks Better Not Perfect Important Every Every Time Fearless Something Perfect Take Main Main Thing Wrong Learn Hit Move Move Forward Afraid Successful Working Forward Keep Thing

I think that what I have been truly searching for as a person, as a writer, as a thinker, as a daughter, is freedom. That is my mission. A sense of liberty, the liberty that comes not only from self-awareness but also from letting go of many things. Many things that weigh us down. Jhumpa Lahiri

Freedom Liberty Daughter Sense Down Think Only Writer Weigh Self-Awareness Mission Also Go Been Truly Person Us Many Searching Letting Letting Go Things Thinker

I don't know Bengali perfectly. I don't know how to write it or even read it. I have an accent, I speak without authority, and so I've always perceived a disjunction between it and me. As a result, I consider my mother tongue, paradoxically, a foreign language. Jhumpa Lahiri

Me Speak Result Mother Language Consider Bengali Paradoxically Perceived Write Perfectly Between Know Accent Read Without Mother Tongue Always How Foreign Foreign Language Authority Even Tongue

I write about characters that interest me. And I don't think of my books as being forms of entertainment. Jhumpa Lahiri

Me Entertainment Think Books Characters About Write Being Interest Forms

Many of my characters struggle with loneliness, that is fair to say. Jhumpa Lahiri

Loneliness Struggle Say Characters Fair Many

Immersing myself in Shakespeare's plays, reading them closely under the guidance of a brilliant, plain-spoken professor changed my life: It opened up the great questions; it put my petty problems into perspective. It got me out of bed in the mornings and kept me in the library late into the night. Jhumpa Lahiri

Life Myself Great Me Library Guidance Problems Perspective Brilliant My Life Reading Petty Changed Late Out Shakespeare Mornings Put Opened Got Bed Questions Up Closely Them Professor Night Kept Plays

I speak English. I grew up speaking Bengali. This is the normal, the known, the obvious composition of who I am. Then there's Italian, this strange, other component of me that I've just created. It was a creative process just to learn the language, never mind to start expressing myself in it. Jhumpa Lahiri

Myself Me Creative Strange Speak Language Creative Process Mind Other Bengali Component Composition Never Obvious Learn Known Am Italian Normal Up Just Grew Process Then Created Speaking English Who Expressing Start

I've always been searching to arrive at a certain voice that will probably elude me forever. Jhumpa Lahiri

Me Will Elude Voice Always Arrive Been Forever Certain Searching

It didn't matter that I wore clothes from Sears; I was still different. I looked different. My name was different. I wanted to pull away from the things that marked my parents as being different. Jhumpa Lahiri

Matter Parents Clothes Marked Name Looked Still Being Different Wanted Being Different Wore Away Things Pull

Almost any American can connect on some level to a family background of having come across some ocean. They say, 'My great-grandparents came from wherever... this is why we have this last name, why we do this thing at Christmas.' All the details get watered down but don't quite disappear. Jhumpa Lahiri

Christmas Family Ocean Down Background Say Details Some Having Disappear Almost Name Come Came Family Background Get American Any Quite Wherever Across Connect They Say Why Thing Level Last Watered

When I write a book, characters come to life for me somewhere at the back of my head. I strive to make them flesh and blood in an abstract way, in words. Jhumpa Lahiri

Life Me Book Words Somewhere Back Way Strive Characters Write Head Abstract Come Make Blood Them Flesh

He told me he was working as an interpreter in a doctor's office in Brookline, Massachusetts, where I was living at the time, and he was translating for a doctor who had a number of Russian patients. On my way home, after running into him, I just heard this phrase in my head. Jhumpa Lahiri

Time Home Me Doctor Living Way Way Home Running Phrase Russian Had He Head Massachusetts Doctor Who Him Heard Office Just Patients Where After Translating Working Who Interpreter Number

With 'Interpreter,' I didn't know it was ever going to be a book, that they were going to be published. I was writing them in a vacuum for the most part. They were my apprentice work. Then the stories happened to become a book. Jhumpa Lahiri

Work Book Writing Become Apprentice Part Know Most Were Going Stories Happened Them Then Ever Published Interpreter Vacuum

One week after moving to Rome, I started writing in my diary in Italian. Jhumpa Lahiri

Writing Week Italian Diary After Rome Moving Started

I have two young children, and I will say that motherhood is its own peak, just like in the process of writing: one climbs and is continuously moving with each book. Becoming a mother is the greatest connection I've ever felt to being spiritual. Jhumpa Lahiri

Spiritual Book Writing Mother Will Motherhood Own Young Say Like Felt Greatest Becoming Climbs Continuously Just Being Children Young Children Process Moving Connection Each Ever Peak Two

I've never had Internet access. Actually, I have looked at things on other people's computers as a bystander. A few times in my life I've opened email accounts, twice actually, but it's something I don't want in my life right now. Jhumpa Lahiri

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

I've 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

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