American - Author | July 11, 1967 -
The Italians always know that I'm not Italian.
Jhumpa Lahiri
KnowAlwaysItalianItalians
American? Indian? I don't know what these words mean. In Italy, it is all about blood, family, where you come from. I'm asked where I am from. I'm from nowhere; I always was, but now I am happy knowing it.
FamilyWordsI AmHappyAmerican
A lot of my personality was informed by feeling very different in the world I grew up in, feeling that I didn't fully belong, that my parents didn't belong.
PersonalityParentsWorldFeelingUp
It's hard to think of myself as an American, and yet I am not from India, a place where I was not born and where I have never lived.
MyselfI AmThinkAmericanBorn
As a child, I felt that the Indian part of me was unacknowledged, and therefore somehow negated, by my American environment and vice versa. Growing up, I was impatient with my parents for being so different, holding on to India the way they did, and always making me feel like I had to make a choice of which way I would go.
ChildParentsMeGrowing UpAmerican
When I write in Italian - this is just the metaphor that came to me immediately, and I really think this is what it is - I feel like I'm writing with my left hand. Because of that weakness, there is this enormous freedom that comes with it.
FreedomMeWritingThinkWeakness
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.
BookFeelPlaceWantRealPoint
Part of my whole project from the beginning was to make an absent world present for my parents, which was India.
BeginningParentsWorldPresentMake
Identity has been such an explosive territory for me... so hard, so painful at times.
IdentityMeHardPainfulBeenTimes
My parents' relationship with Kolkata is so strong. Growing up, the absence of Kolkata was always present in our lives.
RelationshipParentsGrowing UpUp
I have very little choice. If I don't write, I feel dreadful. So I write.
FeelChoiceWriteLittleI Feel
I wish more Italian literature were translated and read in English. I've discovered so many extraordinary and diverse writers: Lalla Romano, Carlo Cassola. Beppe Fenoglio, Giorgio Manganelli, just to name a few.
NameWishLiteratureMoreI Wish
Copyright © 2024 QuotesDict Jhumpa Lahiri quotes