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But she has gathered that Americans, in spite of their public declarations of affection, in spite of their miniskirts and bikinis, in spite of their hand-holding on the street and lying on top of each other on the Cambridge Common, prefer their privacy.

Jhumpa Lahiri

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Jhumpa Lahiri
Age: 57
Born: 1967
Born: July 11
Academic
Actor
Author
Novelist
Screenwriter
University Teacher
Writer
London
England
Jūmpā Lāhīrī
Nilanjana Svadeshna Lahiri
Nilanjana Sudeshna Lahiri
Jhumba Lahiri
Hands
Affection
Bikinis
Street
Cambridge
Americans
Gathered
Streets
Declaration
Hand
Privacy
Public
Holding
Miniskirts
Lying
Spite
Namesake
Common
Prefer
Declarations

More quotes by Jhumpa Lahiri

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Do what I will never do.
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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.
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When I sit down to write, I don't think about writing about an idea or a given message. I just try to write a story which is hard enough.
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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.
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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.
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My grandfather says that's what books are for, Ashoke said, using the opportunity to open the volume in his hands. To travel without moving an inch.
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There were times Ruma felt closer to her mother in death than she had in life, an intimacy born simply of thinking of her so often, of missing her. But she knew that this was an illusion, a mirage, and that the distance between them was now infinite, unyielding.
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With children the clock is reset. We forget what came before
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The thought of Christmas overwhelms him. He no longer looks forward to the holiday he wants only to be on the other side of the season. His impatience makes him feel that he is incontrovertibly, finally, an adult.
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That the last two letters in her name were the first two in his, a silly thing he never mentioned to her but caused him to believe that they were bound together.
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The first sentence of a book is a handshake, perhaps an embrace. Style and personality are irrelevant. They can be formal or casual. They can be tall or short or fat or thin. They can obey the rules or break them. But they need to contain a charge. A live current, which shocks and illuminates.
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Writing is one of the most assertive things a person can do.
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She watched his lips forming the words, at the same time she heard them under her skin, under her winter coat, so near and full of warmth that she felt herself go hot.
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That's what books are for... to travel without moving an inch.
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My parents had an arranged marriage, as did so many other people when I was growing up. My father came and had a life in the United States one way and my mother had a different one, and I was very aware of those things. I continue to wonder about it, and I will continue to write about it.
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The knowledge of death seemed present in both sisters-it was something about the way they carried themselves, something that had broken too son and had not mended, marking them in spite of their lightheartedness.
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I would not send a first story anywhere. I would give myself time to write a number of stories.
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Try to remember it always, he said once Gogol had reached him, leading him slowly back across the breakwater, to where his mother and Sonia stood waiting. Remember that you and I made this journey together to a place where there was nowhere left to go.
Jhumpa Lahiri
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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 thick bangs in need of a trim. They are still the pictures of myself I like best, for they convey that confidence of youth I no longer possess, especially in front of a camera.
Jhumpa Lahiri
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Somehow, bad news, however ridden with static, however filled with echoes, always manages to be conveyed.
Jhumpa Lahiri