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
Related It's interesting that I had such a close relationship with my grandfather. Because your parents ... NOVAK DJOKOVIC For some reasons, I have WWE wrestlers tweeting me all the time. Like, my biggest fans. Why they can... BILLY EICHNER 'How' is a great thing to know. 'Why' is the ultimate. I'm the 'why' coa... MIKE SINGLETARY I say that why don't we bring all points of view. Sit around a table and discuss this evidence, ... THABO MBEKI To do this movie in a watered-down fashion or have these characters be watered down wouldn't hav... JEFFREY DEAN MORGAN I'm sure some people will say, 'Why do this?' And my response is, 'Why wouldn't ... STEVEN SODERBERGH I don't come from money or an educated family background or any sort of supportive family life, ... CAT POWER As I grew up, I always refused to cook Indian food very vehemently, and to this day, I don't coo... GURINDER CHADHA I don't know why I survived Iraq and I don't know why I made it home, but I do know that thi... TAMMY DUCKWORTH I always thought it was strange when these artists like Kurt Cobain or whoever would get really famo... CHAD KROEGER I came from this very traditional background and I benefited hugely from feminism. I felt privileged... DENISE MINA Now we have one chance in some case, as in this body but in other body we will have + one because we... DEYTH BANGER I don't think there's any independent cartoonist whose stuff I don't like or respect in ... CHRIS WARE I say have the night and give people the awards, but why do people want to watch people win awards? ... KARL PILKINGTON There is only one thing keeping us from having heaven on earth: we can't believe it! Why? Becaus... PATRICIA SUN My problems are sort of more on a nuisance level. I can't stand scratchy clothes, I've got t... TEMPLE GRANDIN People always ask, 'Man, why don't you come out and enjoy it? Why don't you celebrate? W... J. J. WATT We were a little upset over this, because it seemed that we were one of the front-runners from the b... NORM STOUT JR So what I'm saying is why don't we think about changing Schrodinger's equation at some l... ROGER PENROSE I can't even SARAH VAN WATERSCHOOT Americans don't want immigration. They don't want any more. Why can't we have a home? Yo... ANN COULTER You know that's history, that's why some people say that my stuff is retro, but I don't ... MARC NEWSON Getting a great idea with song writing is a lot like love. You don't know why this one is differ... TAYLOR SWIFT Some people ask why we don't just wait until we have the whole story before posting. The fact is... MICHAEL ARRINGTON Again, as a gay man I look at that and say there's a hopelessness that surrounds it, but as a hu... ZACHARY QUINTO Why can't people just say they were moved? Why do they have to say it's sappy? CASEY AFFLECK It's different, it's weird to say, 'She's a white rapper or she can't do this be... IGGY AZALEA I don't trust doctors. It's not to say there ain't some good ones, but on a general leve... KEITH RICHARDS When it gets to the part in life where you're more afraid of what your wife is going to do to yo... GEORGE FOREMAN Are you taking us to the beach?" - Dan Cahill JUDE WATSON Do you know the solo at the end of 'Why Don't You Love Me Any More?' that sounds like a ... JOHN GRANT We managed to get underway, and I don't know to this day why we didn't get struck or take a ... BARNEY ROSS I stopped beating up on myself. I stopped asking myself why I didn't sell this number of records... MESHELL NDEGEOCELLO People say, 'Well, why don't they get another job, why don't they pick themselves up by ... CAROLYN CHUTE In my career as a director, there's always been some point where you get halfway through it, or ... CLINT EASTWOOD Some Survivors get angry at having to work at recovering from sexual abuse. They feel that it is unf... BEVERLY ENGEL I don't really see why some of those topical lines have to be crossed to get a point across. I w... BRETT YOUNG Whenever I go to New York or any European country, they say: 'Nawal, why don't you get a fac... NAWAL EL SAADAWI I never question God. Sometimes I say, 'Why me? Why do I have such a hard life? Why do I have th... MATTIE STEPANEK This is my favourite thing about being raised in Africa: we don't do labels very well; we don... DAMBISA MOYO What we do is provide a suggestion. We say, 'We're queer. We're going to do this; we'... BEN HOPKINS American people are very patriotic, but there is no driver to get behind and support. I don't se... ALEXANDER ROSSI There's a mindset of flexibility and adaptability that comes with us. We don't mind hardship... JAMES F. AMOS I have a physical background. It's not like I'm a kung fu master, but my real training was d... VINCENT CASSEL The books I love most are the ones that combine some sort of gripping story with really beautiful or... KAREN THOMPSON WALKER You can't allow the forces of political correction to shut you up. I mean, why are people afraid... BEN CARSON I'm sad, upset, and disheartened with the trolling that happens on social media... At the end of... KARAN JOHAR I don't think anybody should ever take their life for being bullied. But if it wasn't for my... KHLOE KARDASHIAN I'd say the majority of my friends are Australians, although I have some good American friends, ... BELLA HEATHCOTE The thing I hate most in acting is asking permission to do things. What you really want to do is say... LANCE HENRIKSEN Personally, I can't stand violence. In any standard American mainstream movie, there's 20 ti... MICHAEL HANEKE Johnny Depp is like a brother to me. We have matching tattoos on our backs - Charles Baudelaire, the... MARILYN MANSON You know what they say: 'Why sit at a table that doesn't have key lime pie on it if you don&... SLOANE CROSLEY It looks ancient," - Amy Cahill JUDE WATSON I don't know anything more piggish - I don't know anything more un-American than saying, ... TODD ROKITA Ben and I live like hermits. The night of a concert, we'll be like, 'Do you think we can get... MELISSA MCCARTHY I don't understand why black people have been so quiescent, so passive over the hundreds of year... JOHN EDGAR WIDEMAN Some people come out going, I don't get it. And I don't quite know what they're trying t... JOEL COEN Using the Africanist model, each generation should take the family name to a higher place. My father... VING RHAMES It's just a blessing from above. I can't stress that enough, because I don't feel like i... D'BRICKASHAW FERGUSON I'm a natural piano player. So all the practicing I do at this point is in my head. If I don'... HARRY CONNICK, JR. It's important to remember that the animals are not grieving with us. They're very accepting... JON KATZ You know, why don't you take him off all this stuff you have him hopped up on, all this garbage ... MORGAN SPURLOCK I don't give advice. I can't tell anybody what to do. Instead I say this is what we know abo... JOYCE BROTHERS People say, 'In Washington, things can't get done.' We at the state level have to get it... TERRY MCAULIFFE On the outside, America looks like this great melting pot, but on the inside, there's this segre... GURINDER CHADHA In the Tea Party narrative, victory at the polls means a new American revolution, one that will '... MATT TAIBBI You gotta ask 'why' questions. 'Why did you do this?' A 'why' question you c... LARRY KING And there is no getting away from the fact - and this is a key point of discontent among many who ar... JUAN WILLIAMS Some people, I think, think that because I don't take it as seriously as a lot of the girls do, ... CHRISSY TEIGEN Listen, we all have to agree that there is too much litigation going on in this world. But every yea... JAMES BELUSHI Tyler Perry's brand is faith, family and this whole thing that I've built, while my company,... TYLER PERRY I don't come from a famous family and don't have this detachment from everyday people and ev... ED WESTWICK Some days you feel like this is really going well. You can tell. Other days, you're just drawing... PAT OLIPHANT My mother's background was Scottish. She came from an old family, some of whom lived in upper Ne... ALAN HOVHANESS My generation, we really have to step up to the plate and vote. Tweeting is great - people say, '... ZENDAYA One skill of a great entrepreneur is to get a whole complicated discussion and then say, 'We'... BING GORDON I don't understand it and haven't understood in this world of technology: where every buildi... RICK SANTELLI I tell my children now that they are older, 'If something happens to me... don't make no big... B. B. KING My father-in-law gets up at 5 o'clock in the morning and watches the Discovery Channel. I don... JEFF FOXWORTHY Before the math and the momentum overwhelm us all, we are going to solve this nation's economic ... PAUL RYAN We have to make machines understand what they're doing, or they won't be able to come back a... NICHOLAS NEGROPONTE I think my thing is that... I don't know. And that's why I don't wanna sing about 'T... ZARA LARSSON I will not read the last page of novels first," I said, and then punched myself in the face. "... BRANDON SANDERSON I like them all - I don't always approve. I see myself as a sort of benevolent uncle to these ch... PATRICK MARBER Don't buy this 'believe in yourself' rubbish. Why do they keep telling youngsters that? ... STEVE WINWOOD I don't know why there hasn't been a 'Spy Kids' cartoon. You have to bring that up t... DARYL SABARA Talking to my wife, we stare at each other, saying, 'How is this happening? Why is this happenin... STEVE CARELL Personally, I don't think we could do such a show if we didn't get along. The subtext of all... KRISTIN DAVIS I've got to say that I don't see myself as some sort of political type like Alec Baldwin or ... DREW CAREY We have peace with Israel. We're actually the last man standing. So there is going to be immense... ABDULLAH II OF JORDAN At some point, there may be a reason, but they need to say why they need to be on at this time. BILL BARR I don't want to take names, but there are some people who get everything served on a platter. Th... NAWAZUDDIN SIDDIQUI It's just an American tradition to make sure people don't leave hungry. The worst thing is t... TOM DOUGLAS There's many things that I am. And all of those things come together at some point. If somebody ... WALTER MOSLEY Most of the time my own family feels like I don't need anything, I'm tough as nails and I do... NENE LEAKES Americans don't have deep gastronomic roots. They wanted to get away from the cultures of Europe... ALICE WATERS We don't want to connect you with just anyone on Path. Without the contact list information, som... DAVE MORIN We are not hungry... Why foist this food upon us? We don't want to be choked. We have enough. ROBERT MUGABE We do all the appropriating. They do not do any of it down at the White House. They send a budget up... LAMAR ALEXANDER
More Jhumpa Lahiri
The more I feel imperfect, the more I feel alive. JHUMPA LAHIRI Isolation offered its own form of companionship JHUMPA LAHIRI That's the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet. JHUMPA LAHIRI I feel partly American, but I have an ambiguous relation with both America and India, the only two c... JHUMPA LAHIRI A lot of my personality was informed by feeling very different in the world I grew up in, feeling th... JHUMPA LAHIRI The essential dilemma of my life is between my deep desire to belong and my suspicion of belonging. JHUMPA LAHIRI I think, like any artist or any writer, I just want to have that pure freedom of expression and of t... JHUMPA LAHIRI All American fiction could be classified as immigrant fiction. JHUMPA LAHIRI When you live in a country where your own language is considered foreign, you can feel a continuous ... JHUMPA LAHIRI Winning the Pulitzer is wonderful and it's an honor and I feel so humbled and so grateful, but I... JHUMPA LAHIRI My parents had an arranged marriage, as did so many other people when I was growing up. My father ca... JHUMPA LAHIRI Language and identity are so fundamentally intertwined. You peel back all the layers in terms of wha... JHUMPA LAHIRI I have two young children, and I will say that motherhood is its own peak, just like in the process ... JHUMPA LAHIRI Immersing myself in Shakespeare's plays, reading them closely under the guidance of a brilliant,... JHUMPA LAHIRI In graduate school, I decide to write my doctoral thesis on how Italian architecture influenced Engl... JHUMPA LAHIRI I think it's the small things, the smaller episodes and details that I linger on and try to draw... JHUMPA LAHIRI You can't have a hit every time. The main thing is to keep on working and not be afraid to take ... JHUMPA LAHIRI He told me he was working as an interpreter in a doctor's office in Brookline, Massachusetts, wh... JHUMPA LAHIRI I think that what I have been truly searching for as a person, as a writer, as a thinker, as a daugh... JHUMPA LAHIRI This story is based on a gentleman who indeed did... used to come to my parents' house in 1971 f... JHUMPA LAHIRI I find it really liberating to be in a place where I am a foreigner in every way. I've lived wit... JHUMPA LAHIRI On the screen I saw tanks rolling through dusty streets, and fallen buildings, and forests of unfami... JHUMPA LAHIRI The first sentence of a book is a handshake, perhaps an embrace. JHUMPA LAHIRI Language, identity, place, home: these are all of a piece - just different elements of belonging and... JHUMPA LAHIRI I've gained a lot from James Joyce, Tolstoy, Chekhov and R. K. Narayan. While writing, I try to ... JHUMPA LAHIRI It took me a long time to even dare to envision myself as a writer. I was very uncertain and hesitan... JHUMPA LAHIRI From the beginnings of literature, poets and writers have based their narratives on crossing borders... JHUMPA LAHIRI Surely it is a magical thing for a handful of words, artfully arranged, to stop time. To conjure a p... JHUMPA LAHIRI I speak English. I grew up speaking Bengali. This is the normal, the known, the obvious composition ... JHUMPA LAHIRI I don't know Bengali perfectly. I don't know how to write it or even read it. I have an acce... JHUMPA LAHIRI It didn't matter that I wore clothes from Sears; I was still different. I looked different. My n... JHUMPA LAHIRI The knowledge of death seemed present in both sisters—it was something about the way they carried ... JHUMPA LAHIRI Pack a pillow and blanket and see as much of the world as you can.You will not regret it. JHUMPA LAHIRI Writing has certain advantages; film is another way to tell a story. An experienced filmmaker will t... JHUMPA LAHIRI Most people trusted in the future, assuming that their preferred version of it would unfold. Blindly... JHUMPA LAHIRI I think if you speak to any creative person, there's something so powerful - so intoxicating, if... JHUMPA LAHIRI On the technical side, I hope that my writing is evolving and maturing, ripening, deepening. JHUMPA LAHIRI I'm always intrigued by authors who say, 'This book took 17 drafts.' They're very cl... JHUMPA LAHIRI I have two passports because I have to have at least one, and I really don't know how I define m... JHUMPA LAHIRI I think there are a lot of misconceptions on both sides, the developing vs. the developed world, esp... JHUMPA LAHIRI I had been learning Italian for years. I always loved Latin, but Italian is a living language; I'... JHUMPA LAHIRI The urge to convert experience into a group of words that are in a grammatical relation to one anoth... JHUMPA LAHIRI It was important to me to become day-to-day fluent and functional in another language, and about 10 ... JHUMPA LAHIRI A lot of my upbringing was about denying or fretting or evading. JHUMPA LAHIRI In college, I used to underline sentences that struck me, that made me look up from the page. They w... JHUMPA LAHIRI In fiction, plenty do the job of conveying information, rousing suspense, painting characters, enabl... JHUMPA LAHIRI They were things for which it was impossible to prepare but which one spent a lifetime looking back ... JHUMPA LAHIRI Interpreter of Maladies is the title of one of the stories in the book. And the phrase itself was so... JHUMPA LAHIRI He saw that his mother was dwelling in an alternate time, a more bearable reality. JHUMPA LAHIRI Each day she removes a small portion of the unwanted things in people’s lives, though all of it, s... JHUMPA LAHIRI Descartes, in his Third Meditation, said that God re-created the body at each successive moment. So ... JHUMPA LAHIRI When Deepa poured Bela some water from the urn that stood on a little stool, in the corner of the ro... JHUMPA LAHIRI She had preferred being on the plane, detached from the earth, the illusion of sitting still. JHUMPA LAHIRI Time flowed for Bela in the opposite direction. The day after yesterday, she sometimes said. Pronoun... JHUMPA LAHIRI Plato says the purpose of philosophy is to teach us how to die. JHUMPA LAHIRI Isolation offered its own form of companionship: the reliable silence of her rooms, the steadfast tr... JHUMPA LAHIRI But he was no longer in Tollygunge. He had stepped out of it as he had stepped so many mornings out ... JHUMPA LAHIRI The imperfection became a mark of distinction about their home. Something visitors noticed, the firs... JHUMPA LAHIRI Writing down call numbers with short pencils, searching up and down aisles that would turn dark when... JHUMPA LAHIRI I don't know, he said, handing her the ticket. He'd been standing there all the while on the sidewal... JHUMPA LAHIRI Too much information, and yet, in her case, not enough. In a world of diminishing mystery, the unkno... JHUMPA LAHIRI Everything in Bela's life has been a reaction. I am who I am, she would say, I live as I do because ... JHUMPA LAHIRI Nor was her love for Udayan recognizable or intact. Anger was always mounted to it, zigzagging throu... JHUMPA LAHIRI There was the anxiety that one day would not follow the next, combined with the certainty that it wo... JHUMPA LAHIRI It was the English word she used. It was in English that the past was unilateral; in Bengali, the wo... JHUMPA LAHIRI ...learning was an act of rediscovery, knowledge a form of remembering. JHUMPA LAHIRI The future haunted but kept her alive; it remained her sustenance and also her predator. JHUMPA LAHIRI Most people trusted in the future, assuming that their preferred version of it would unfold. JHUMPA LAHIRI She learned that an act intended to express love could have nothing to do with it. That her heart an... JHUMPA LAHIRI War will bring the revolution; revolution will stop the war, JHUMPA LAHIRI With children the clock is reset. We forget what came before JHUMPA LAHIRI With her own hand she'd painted herself into a corner, and then out of the picture altogether. JHUMPA LAHIRI And yet he had loved her. A Bookish girl heedless of her beauty, unconscious of her effect. She'd be... JHUMPA LAHIRI Isolation offered its own form of companionship: the reliable silence of her rooms, the steadfast tr... JHUMPA LAHIRI For that story, I took as my subject a young woman whom I got to know over the course of a couple of... JHUMPA LAHIRI In a world of diminishing mystery, the unknown persists. JHUMPA LAHIRI I've always been searching to arrive at a certain voice that will probably elude me forever. JHUMPA LAHIRI I think about the structure, sure. I think about what's going to happen, and how it's going ... JHUMPA LAHIRI But she has gathered that Americans, in spite of their public declarations of affection, in spite of... JHUMPA LAHIRI On weekdays, as soon as she picked Bela from the bus stop and brought her home, she went straight in... JHUMPA LAHIRI While the astronauts, heroes forever, spent mere hours on the moon, I have remained in this new worl... JHUMPA LAHIRI Still, there are times I am bewildered by each mile I have traveled, each meal I have eaten, each pe... JHUMPA LAHIRI I recently discovered the work of Giorgio Manganelli, who wrote a collection called 'Centuria,... JHUMPA LAHIRI I'm from Kingston, R.I., sort of on the University of Rhode Island campus - on the margins of th... JHUMPA LAHIRI Pet names are a persistent remnant of childhood, a reminder that life is not always so serious, so f... JHUMPA LAHIRI I love reading poetry, and yet, at this point, the thought of writing a poem, to me, is tantamount t... JHUMPA LAHIRI If certain books are to be termed 'immigrant fiction,' what do we call the rest? Native fict... JHUMPA LAHIRI If you look at my characters as a group, they all have a different relationship with the way that pl... JHUMPA LAHIRI Even printed, on pages that are bound, sentences remain unsettled organisms. Years later, I can alwa... JHUMPA LAHIRI I've inherited a sense of that loss from my parents because it was so palpable all the time whil... JHUMPA LAHIRI Imperfection inspires invention, imagination, creativity. It stimulates. The more I feel imperfect, ... JHUMPA LAHIRI Try to remember it always," he said once Gogol had reached him, leading him slowly back across the b... JHUMPA LAHIRI When you’re in love, you want to live forever. You want the emotion, the excitement you feel to la... JHUMPA LAHIRI You are still young, free.. Do yourself a favor. Before it's too late, without thinking too much abo... JHUMPA LAHIRI On a sticky August evening two weeks before her due date, Ashima Ganguli stands in the kitchen of a ... JHUMPA LAHIRI It imparts a certain momentum to nuclear negotiations with the US. France has played a significant r... DILIP LAHIRI There is a great deal of French interest in India now that must still be converted into action on th... DILIP LAHIRI