Mother Quotes by Jhumpa Lahiri

9 Mother quotes by Jhumpa Lahiri

Jhumpa Lahiri’s nine brief reflections on motherhood carry her trademark subtlety, turning small moments into layered, thoughtful observations.

Rate this collection: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ No ratings yet

“He saw that his mother was dwelling in an alternate time, a more bearable reality.”

Jhumpa Lahiri

Image

Try to remember it always," he said once Gogol had reached him, leading him slowly back across the breakwater, to where his…

Jhumpa Lahiri

Image

There were times Ruma felt closer to her mother in death than she had in life, an intimacy born simply of thinking…

Jhumpa Lahiri

Image

My parents had an arranged marriage, as did so many other people when I was growing up. My father came and had…

Jhumpa Lahiri

Image

“She’d told Bela that the feeling would ebb but never fully go away. It would form part of her landscape, wherever she…

Jhumpa Lahiri

Image

“Though no longer pregnant, she continues, at times, to mix Rice Krispies and peanuts and onions in a bowl. For being a…

Jhumpa Lahiri

Image

“The next time she visits her father she’ll speak to him in English. Were her mother ever to stand before her, even…

Jhumpa Lahiri

Image

“You will have a wife, and children of your own, and they will want to be driven to different places at the…

Jhumpa Lahiri

Image

“Of the three women in Subhash’s life—his mother, Gauri, Bela—there remained only one. His mother’s mind was now a wilderness. There was…

Jhumpa Lahiri

Image

Other authors on Mother

More by Jhumpa Lahiri

“Assured by his grades and his apparent indifference to girls, his parents don't suspect Gogol of being, in his own fumbling way, an American…

Jhumpa Lahiri

Image

...that in spite of living in a mansion an American is not above wearing a pair of secondhand pants, bought for fifty cents.

Jhumpa Lahiri

Image

He owned an expensive camera that required thought before you pressed the shutter, and I quickly became his favorite subject, round-faced, missing teeth, my…

Jhumpa Lahiri

Image

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…

Jhumpa Lahiri

Image

“This tradition doesn't exist for Bengalis, naming a son after father or grandfather, a daughter after mother or grandmother. This sign of respect in…

Jhumpa Lahiri

Image

I wanted to pull away from the things that marked my parents as being different.

Jhumpa Lahiri

Image

“Ashoke suspects that Mrs. Jones (the secretary at his new job as a professor) ...is about his own mother's age. Mrs. Jones leads a…

Jhumpa Lahiri

Image

But she has gathered that Americans, in spite of their public declarations of affection, in spite of their miniskirts and bikinis, in spite of…

Jhumpa Lahiri

Image

The sky was different, without color, taut and unforgiving. But the water was the most unforgiving thing, nearly black at times, cold enough, I…

Jhumpa Lahiri

Image

“In those six weeks I regarded her arrival as I would the arrival of a coming month, or season - something inevitable, but meaningless…

Jhumpa Lahiri

Image

There were times Ruma felt closer to her mother in death than she had in life, an intimacy born simply of thinking of her…

Jhumpa Lahiri

Image

“Writing down call numbers with short pencils, searching up and down aisles that would turn dark when the timers on the lights expired. She…

Jhumpa Lahiri

Image

Winning the Pulitzer is wonderful and it's an honor and I feel so humbled and so grateful, but I think that I'll think of…

Jhumpa Lahiri

Image

He tries to peel the image from the sticky yellow backing, to show her the next time he sees her, but it clings stubbornly,…

Jhumpa Lahiri

Image

“If I stop to think about fans, or bestselling, or not bestselling, or good reviews, or not-good reviews, it just becomes too much. It's…

Jhumpa Lahiri

Image