“The best sentences orient us, like stars in the sky, like landmarks on a trail. They remain the test, whether or not to read something. The most compelling narrative, expressed in sentences with which I have no chemical reaction, or… — Jhumpa Lahiri Copy Share Image
In fiction, plenty do the job of conveying information, rousing suspense, painting characters, enabling them to speak. But only certain sentences breathe and shift about, like live matter in soil. — Jhumpa Lahiri Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share 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 Copy Share 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 Copy Share 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 Copy Share 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 Copy Share Image
I wanted to pull away from the things that marked my parents as being different. — Jhumpa Lahiri Copy Share 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 Copy Share 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 Copy Share 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 Copy Share 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 Copy Share 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 Copy Share 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 Copy Share Image
