Jhumpa Lahiri Quotes

I'm certainly proud to be Cuban American, and it's a fantastic opportunity for anybody - regardless of their ethnicity or nationality. It does carry a measure or pride to know where you're from and to know what your roots are.

So the search for a father in Central Station is also a search for a country.

For a while, I thought a lot about lineage. Where do I belong? Who am I standing next to?

I have my husband and children near me in Rome, and I feel this is where we are temporarily belonging. But personally, all my life, I have felt the absence of a sense of history.

I'm always in touch with where I'm from.

We should not ignore or isolate our roots, no matter where we stay.

I always knew who I was and where I had come from. I was not looking for a home in other people's lands.

I love my heritage!

I'll always be Chinese first. It probably isn't politically correct to say or something that the majority understands; I can change my shoes, I can swap my passport, but, I'll always have this face.

Europe has been in my bones.

A woman always has her man, but the man unconsciously leans on his roots, his heritage. He feels like an orphan without his parents.

I'll be a Quebecker-Canadian. I'm from Quebec, and every time I go to a country, I say that. It's my roots, my origins, and it's the most important thing to me.

I've known where my heritage is from all along.

It's strange; when I was younger and people would ask, 'Where are you from?', I'd say, 'West Africa', which was odd because I'm obviously not African, but it was my home.

I want to clear this once and for all. I was born in Hong Kong. I grew up in Japan and China. London is not home for me. I was there only for three years before I moved to India, but that's probably why I am connected with it. London is definitely not the place I consider my home. It's India that I consider home.

More and more I understand that it's very fine not to know where you come from.

It's always good to remember where you come from and celebrate it. To remember where you come from is part of where you're going.

I spent a lot of time thinking that I was some kind of foundling, that I had been a changeling, that I had been found under a bush somewhere, and that I couldn't possibly be kin - but the more I live, the more I feel absolutely like I come out of my family. I'm a sort of strange natural progression.

I feel like our history and our roots make us who we are.

Returning to your family and where you came from, and your history... this is what makes you strong. It's not looking out that's going to do that - it's looking in.

Of course, our roots are in Germany, it always will be the feeling of home.

You can't run from your roots of who you are.

I think everyone is kind of an immigrant somehow, and I wasn't raised in an American society at home. My household was a Jamaican household, so I got all my traditions, all my roots and culture intact, so I'm able to support both countries.

When people ask me where I'm from, I say I'm from the Sudan. But when they ask what my hometown is, I say London. It's where I lived, and it's where my whole family lived.

Let's treasure our roots, even when we're far away.