Jhumpa Lahiri Thoughts

albert einstein quotes

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

I would not send a first story anywhere. I would give myself time to write a number of stories.

The most compelling narrative, expressed in sentences with which I have no chemical reaction, or an adverse one, leaves me cold.

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.

She learned that an act intended to express love could have nothing to do with it. That her heart and her body were different things.

She is stunned that in this town there are no sidewalks to speak of, no streetlights, no public transportation, no stores for miles at at a time.

She supposed that all those years of loving a person who was dishonest had taught her a few things.

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

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