Jhumpa Lahiri Quotes

Author Image

Jhumpa Lahiri

Profession : Author

Birth : July 11, 1967

I always think first about the nature of the story. When I had the idea for 'The Namesake,' I felt that it had to be a novel - it couldn't work as a story.

Jhumpa Lahiri

On the screen I saw tanks rolling through dusty streets, and fallen buildings, and forests of unfamiliar trees into which East Pakistani refugees had fled, seeking safety over the Indian border.

Jhumpa Lahiri

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

For years, I sort of would try to write a story that somehow fit the title. And I don't think it happened for maybe another four years that I actually thought of a story, the plot of a story that corresponded to that phrase.

Jhumpa Lahiri

I feel as though I've gotten to a point where I don't really want to set a book in any real place ever again.

Jhumpa Lahiri

In New York I was always so scared of saying that I wrote fiction. It just seemed like, 'Who am I to dare to do that thing here? The epicenter of publishing and writers?' I found all that very intimidating and avoided writing as a response.

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

My responsibility isn't to paint a flattering portrait; my responsibility is to paint a real portrait, a true portrait.

Jhumpa Lahiri

This story is based on a gentleman who indeed did... used to come to my parents' house in 1971 from Bangladesh. He was at the University of Rhode Island. And I was four, four years old, at the time, and so I actually don't have any memories of this gentleman.

Jhumpa Lahiri

In Italy, where I live now, I have put some distance between myself and the world that has formed me.

Jhumpa Lahiri

Some Indians will come up and say that a story reminded them of something very specific to their experience. Which may or may not be the case for non-Indians.

Jhumpa Lahiri

It interests me to imagine characters shifting from one situation and one location to another for whatever the circumstances may be.

Jhumpa Lahiri

I approach writing stories as a recorder. I think of my role as some kind of reporting device - recording and projecting.

Jhumpa Lahiri

I can't tell you exactly how I found it. It was just a process of writing a lot of stories and reading a lot of stories that I admired and just working and working until the sentences sounded right and I was satisfied with them.

Jhumpa Lahiri

I'm from Kingston, R.I., sort of on the University of Rhode Island campus - on the margins of that, actually.

Jhumpa Lahiri

I had been learning Italian for years. I always loved Latin, but Italian is a living language; I'm writing in it now as well as reading it. It is so interesting delving further into language.

Jhumpa Lahiri

I'm bound to fail when I write in Italian, but unlike my sense of failure in the past, this doesn't torment or grieve me.

Jhumpa Lahiri

My parents' relationship with Kolkata is so strong. Growing up, the absence of Kolkata was always present in our lives.

Jhumpa Lahiri

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 like staring at the mirror all day.

Jhumpa Lahiri

The reactions haven't differed; the concerns have been different. When I read for a predominantly Indian audience, there are more questions that are based on issues of identity and representation.

Jhumpa Lahiri