That's the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet.

- The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri

Pet names are a persistant remnant of childhood, a reminder that life is not always so serious, so formal, so complicated. They are a reminder, too, that one is not all things to all people.

- The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri

That's the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet.

- The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri

Pet names are a persistant remnant of childhood, a reminder that life is not always so serious, so formal, so complicated. They are a reminder, too, that one is not all things to all people.

- The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri

Pack a pillow and blanket and see as much of the world as you can.You will not regret it.

- The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri

She has the gift of accepting her life.

- The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri

Pack a pillow and blanket and see as much of the world as you can.You will not regret it.

- The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri

She has the gift of accepting her life.

- The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri

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.

- The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri

Remember that you and I made this journey together to a place where there was nowhere left to go.

- The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri

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.

- The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri

Remember that you and I made this journey together to a place where there was nowhere left to go.

- The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri

One hand, five homes. A lifetime in a fist.

- The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri

Isolation offered its own form of companionship

- The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri

One hand, five homes. A lifetime in a fist.

- The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri

Isolation offered its own form of companionship

- The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri

Sexy means loving someone you do not know.

- Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri

Somehow, bad news, however ridden with static, however filled with echoes, always manages to be conveyed.

- The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri

Sexy means loving someone you do not know.

- Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri

Somehow, bad news, however ridden with static, however filled with echoes, always manages to be conveyed.

- The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri

And yet he had loved her. A Bookish girl heedless of her beauty, unconscious of her effect. She'd been prepared to live her life alone but from the moment he'd known her he'd needed her.

- The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri

You remind me of everything that followed.

- The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri

And yet he had loved her. A Bookish girl heedless of her beauty, unconscious of her effect. She'd been prepared to live her life alone but from the moment he'd known her he'd needed her.

- The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri

You remind me of everything that followed.

- The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri

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.

- Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri

In a world of diminishing mystery, the unknown persists.

- The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri

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.

- Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri

In a world of diminishing mystery, the unknown persists.

- The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri

Do what I will never do.

- The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri

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.

- Unaccustomed Earth, Jhumpa Lahiri

Do what I will never do.

- The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri

Remember it always. Remember that you and I made this journey and went together to a place where there was nowhere left to go.

- Jhumpa Lahiri

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.

- Unaccustomed Earth, Jhumpa Lahiri

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

- Unaccustomed Earth, Jhumpa Lahiri

With her own hand she'd painted herself into a corner, and then out of the picture altogether.

- The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri

Pet names are a persistent remnant of childhood, a reminder that life is not always so serious, so formal, so complicated.

- The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri

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.

- The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri

With children the clock is reset. We forget what came before

- The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri

War will bring the revolution revolution will stop the war,

- The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri

He tries to peel the image from the sticky yellow backing, to show her the next time he sees her, but it clings stubbornly, refusing to detach cleanly from the past.

- The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri

A woman who had fallen out of love with her life

- Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri

Most people trusted in the future, assuming that their preferred version of it would unfold.

- The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri

...learning was an act of rediscovery, knowledge a form of remembering.

- The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri

The future haunted but kept her alive it remained her sustenance and also her predator.

- The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri

It was only then, raising my water glass in his name, that I knew what it meant to miss someone who was so many miles and hours away, just as he had missed his wife and daughters for so many months.

- Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri

She has given birth to vagabonds. She is the keeper of all these names and numbers now, numbers she once knew by heart, numbers and addresses her children no longer remember.

- The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri

There was the anxiety that one day would not follow the next, combined with the certainty that it would.

- The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri

She had listened to him, partly sympathetic, partly horrified. For it was one thing for her to reject her background, to be critical of her family's heritage, another to hear it from him.

- The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri

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

- The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri

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.

- The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri

My grandfather always says that's what books are for. To travel without moving an inch.

- The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri

Gogol is unaccustomed to this sort of talk at mealtimes, to the indulgent ritual of the lingering meal, and the pleasant aftermath of bottles and crumbs and empty glasses that clutter the table.

- The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri

As strange as it seemed, I knew in my heart that one day her death would affect me, and stranger still, that mine would affect her.

- Interpreter of Maladies, 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 of you.

- The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri

The imperfection became a mark of distinction about their home. Something visitors noticed, the first family anecdote that was told.

- The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri

He learned not to mind the silences.

- Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri

Everything is there

- Jhumpa Lahiri

I don't know, he said, handing her the ticket. He'd been standing there all the while on the sidewalk, waiting for her. Waiting, until they were in the darkness of the theatre, to take her hand.

- The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri

Too much information, and yet, in her case, not enough. In a world of diminishing mystery, the unknown persists.

- The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri

Books are the best means&mdashprivate, discreet, reliable&mdashof overcoming reality.

- In Other Words, Jhumpa Lahiri

Like pregnancy, being a foreigner, Ashima believes, is something that elicits the same curiosity of from strangers, the same combination of pity and respect.

- The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri

Plato says the purpose of philosophy is to teach us how to die.

- The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri

How many times does a person write his name in a lifetime&mdasha million? Two million?

- The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri

He saw that his mother was dwelling in an alternate time, a more bearable reality.

- The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri

I have only the desire. Yet ultimately a desire is nothing but a crazy need. As

- Jhumpa Lahiri

So that she began to see herself more clearly, as a thin film of dust was wiped from a sheet of glass.

- The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri

What shed done for him, because hed asked.

- The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri

The cosmetics that had seemed superfluous were necessary now, not to improve her but to define her somehow.

- Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri

The notice informed them that it was a temporary matter: for five days their electricity would be cut off for one hour, beginning at eight P.M.

- Jhumpa Lahiri

No more bells ringing in the middle of the afternoon demolishing the rest of the day. No more waiting for the situation to change.

- Unaccustomed Earth, Jhumpa Lahiri

The nickname had irritated and pleased her at the same time. It made her feel foolish, but she was aware that in renaming her he had claimed her somehow, already made her his own.

- The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri

I returned to my existence, the existence I had chosen instead of you.

- Unaccustomed Earth, Jhumpa Lahiri

In those six weeks I regarded her arrival as I would the arrival of a coming month, or season - something inevitable, but meaningless at the same time.

- Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri

Remember that you and I made this journey, that we went together to a place where there was nowhere left to go.

- Jhumpa Lahiri

She had preferred being on the plane, detached from the earth, the illusion of sitting still.

- The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri

She prefers books to jewels and saris.

- Jhumpa Lahiri

Every language belongs to a specific place. It can migrate, it can spread. But usually its tied to a geographical territory, a country. Italian

- In Other Words, Jhumpa Lahiri

He felt the chill of her secrecy, numbing him, like a poison spreading quickly through his veins.

- The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri

Most of all I remember the three of them operating during that time as if they were a single person, sharing a single meal, a single body, a single silence, and a single fear.

- Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri

They tolerate my mistakes. They correct me, they encourage me, they provide the words I lack. They speak clearly, patiently. Just like parents with their children. The

- In Other Words, Jhumpa Lahiri

Because in the end to learn a language, to feel connected to it, you have to have a dialogue, however childlike, however imperfect.

- In Other Words, Jhumpa Lahiri

&hellipavevo bisogno di una lingua differente: una lingua che fosse un luogo di affetto e di riflessione. &mdashANTONIO TABUCCHI

- In Other Words, Jhumpa Lahiri

People are starving, and this is their solution, he eventually said. They turn victims into criminals. They aim guns at people who can't shoot back.

- The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri

In so many ways, his familys life feels like a string of accidents, unforeseen, unintended, one incident begetting another.

- The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri

For Gogol Ganguli- The man who gave you his name, from the man who gave you your name.

- Jhumpa Lahiri

Given that she barely saw her father, given that she continued to measure out her contact with him, whether to deny herself or to deny him, she could not be sure.

- The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri

If I stop to think about fans, or bestselling, or not bestselling, or good reviews, or not-good reviews, it just becomes too much. It's like staring at the mirror all day.

- Jhumpa Lahiri

To Travel without moving an inch.

- The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri

Odd things made him love her.

- Unaccustomed Earth, Jhumpa Lahiri

I owed the greater apology, but at the same time I knew that was done was done, that no matter what I said now I would never be able to make it right.

- Unaccustomed Earth, Jhumpa Lahiri

What was stored in memory was distinct from what was deliberately remembered, Augustine said.

- The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri

In their silence they continued both to protect me and to punish me. The memory of that night was now the only tie between us, eclipsing everything else.

- Unaccustomed Earth, Jhumpa Lahiri

She had denied herself the pleasure of openly sharing life with the person she loved.

- Unaccustomed Earth, Jhumpa Lahiri

She was unprepared for the landscape to be so altered. For there to be no trace of that evening, forty autumns ago.

- The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri

And yet it felt like an invasion of the part of his body, the physical sense that was most precious: something that betrayed him and also refused to abandon him.

- Unaccustomed Earth, Jhumpa Lahiri

Bilmezlik ve umut içinde gönüllü bir beklenti hali... Iste böyle yasiyordu çogu insan.

- The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri

He longed for sleep, but it would not immerse him that night the waters he sought for his repose were deep enough to wade in, but not to swim.

- The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri

It's easier to surrender to confinement.

- The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri

And yet my lexicon develops without logic, in a darting, fleeting manner. The words appear, accompany me for a while, then, often without warning, abandon me.

- In Other Words, Jhumpa Lahiri

Reading in another language implies a perpetual state of growth, of possibility. I

- In Other Words, Jhumpa Lahiri

They still feel somehow in transit, still disconnected from their lives, bound up in an alternate schedule, an intimacy only the four of them would share.

- The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri

Books are the best means—private, discreet, reliable—of overcoming reality.

- Jhumpa Lahiri

Only then, forced at six months to confront his destiny, does he begin to cry.

- The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri

How many times does a person write his name in a lifetime—a million? Two million?

- Jhumpa Lahiri

Every language belongs to a specific place. It can migrate, it can spread. But usually it’s tied to a geographical territory, a country. Italian

- Jhumpa Lahiri

In so many ways, his family’s life feels like a string of accidents, unforeseen, unintended, one incident begetting another.

- Jhumpa Lahiri

What she’d done for him, because he’d asked.

- Jhumpa Lahiri

I just wanted to go home, to the language in which I was known, and loved.

- Jhumpa Lahiri

Glowing screens, increasingly foldable, portable, companionable, anticipating any possible question the human brain might generate.

- Jhumpa Lahiri

When you live in a country where your own language is considered foreign, you can feel a continuous sense of estrangement. You 

- Jhumpa Lahiri

I realize that it’s impossible to know a foreign language perfectly. For

- Jhumpa Lahiri

The camera slung around his neck...was the only complicated thing he wore.

- Jhumpa Lahiri

He was blind to self-constraints, like an animal incapable of perceiving certain colors.

- Jhumpa Lahiri

As Mr. Sen backed out of the parking lot, he put his arm across the top of the front seat, so that it looked as if he had his arm around Mrs. Sen.

- Jhumpa Lahiri

She believed she was not significant enough to cast a shadow of her own.

- Jhumpa Lahiri

Back then she had only wanted to shut the door to it, to be apart from Subhash and Bela. She’d been incapable of cherishing what she’d had.

- Jhumpa Lahiri

She knew that the word providence meant foresight, the future beheld before it was experienced.

- Jhumpa Lahiri

Is it really pain you feel, Mrs. Das, or is it guilt?

- Jhumpa Lahiri

It made him shy, they way he felt the first time they stood together in a mirror.

- Jhumpa Lahiri

Things were different now, of course; those solitary hours he'd once savored had become a prison for him, a commonplace.

- Jhumpa Lahiri

Brahmin who’d learned the tribal dialects. He refused

- Jhumpa Lahiri

I see the people who have lived here forever. They walk quickly, indifferent to the buildings. They cross the squares without stopping. I 

- Jhumpa Lahiri

What was stored in memory was distinct from what was deliberately remembered,

- Jhumpa Lahiri

Station on Cape Cod looks close to where you are. It’s in a place called Wellfleet.

- Jhumpa Lahiri

Belonging to another man and therefore not even a little bit to him.

- Jhumpa Lahiri

Avoiding puddles, stepping over mats of hyacinth leaves that remained in place. Breathing the dank air.

- Jhumpa Lahiri

There had been nothing worse than waiting for it to come; the void that followed was easier to bear than the solid weight of those days.

- Jhumpa Lahiri

And she refused to go to that miserable place he had dragged her to so many times, to hope for a thing that was unchangeable.

- Jhumpa Lahiri

Stretched to the breaking point by all that now stood between them, but at the same time refusing to break.

- Jhumpa Lahiri

She believed that he would be incapable of hurting her as Graham had.

- Jhumpa Lahiri

I hope you don’t mind my asking,” Douglas said, “but I noticed the statue outside, and are you guys Christian? I thought you were Indian.

- Jhumpa Lahiri

The blood of too many, dissolving the very stain.

- Jhumpa Lahiri

She wished the days and months ahead of her would end. But the rest of her life continued to present itself, time ceaselessly proliferating.

- Jhumpa Lahiri

I watched your father killed before my eyes, she might have said.

- Jhumpa Lahiri

No man wants a woman who dresses like a dishwasher.

- Jhumpa Lahiri

It is the goddess Kali,” Mrs. Dixit explained brightly,

- Jhumpa Lahiri

She prefers books to jewels and saris. She believes as I do.

- Jhumpa Lahiri