Jhumpa Lahiri Quotes

I have a lot of stories about being a kid because it was the last time I was interesting.

I was just watching baby videos of me and I was obviously an exhibitionist.

If you've seen a photo of me from when I was a kid, I don't think anyone would have expected that going in front of the camera was something that I was going to do. I can't believe how little effort my parents put into making me seem like an appealing little girl.

I like having my picture taken and being a glamorous person. Sometimes when I find myself getting impatient, I just remember the times I cried my eyes out because nobody wanted to take my picture at the Trocadero.

I always wanted to entertain. When I was six, a scrawny, scrawny kid, I'd get in my red speedo and do muscle moves. I actually thought I was muscular. I didn't know everyone was laughing at me.

I was always happy with my look and with my hair, and so when I look at the old pictures, I don't like the hair now, but I was happy for that moment, and that's great.

Sometimes I'll look back at old pictures where I'm a little heavy and dressed funny and think, 'How did I get chicks all the time?'

My only interest in photographing is photography.

There is something about this process, and about the whole 8 x 10 [camera] business, that takes it out of the arena of the snapshot, even though, of course, I'm always desperate for that feeling. I wanted those family pictures to look effortless. I wanted them to look like snapshots. And some of them did.

The first Polaroid ever took of someone in my family was my son when he was about four years old.

I always think of childhood as the inarticulate moment, and you have your little camera. You were filming it, recording it, you just didn't know how to speak it.

I started photography more or less by accident when I was already 27. I was taken on as an assistant by a photographer who was a friend of a friend and I very quickly understood the potential of expression in photography.

At 68 I'm every age I ever was. I always think of that. I'm not just 68. I'm also 55 and 21 and three. Oh especially three.

We cannot outperform our level of self-esteem.

But the years came and went without bringing the careless boy; and when they met again Wendy was a married woman, and Peter was no more to her than a little dust in the box in which she had kept her toys.

I believe that a man should be... as big as he feels it in him to be!

Apart from the traditional paintings I also dabble with a little photography.

She looks at herself in the mirror. The idea is to look sexy again. And for whom exactly? Yourself, of course. Yes, well, that's all wonderfully self-affirming and very strong-minded as any decent woman should be these days, but let's just face facts here and say that when a woman - no, when a person is thinking about feeling sexy, it is always with the idea of someone else in mind.

I'm not a grown up until everybody realises I'm a grown up. When everyone remembers me as the dirty kid singing little songs I am the dirty little kid.

As you care less about what people think of you, you will care more about what others think of themselves.

When I look in the mirror, what do I see? I see a strong, independent, working woman who is very much in love and very happy with the reflection in that mirror.

The first day I can remember looking into a mirror and being able to stand what I saw was the day I had a guitar in my hand.

It's a frightening thing to act on your opinions. You've got to find confidence in yourself, not in what others think of you. I'm still trying to separate how I see myself from how I'm perceived. It's not easy, but it's worth it.

"You look different now. Like a proper little girl," (said Gendry.) "I look like an oak tree, with all these stupid acorns," (said Arya.) "Nice, though. A nice oak tree. [...] You even smell nice for a change."

If I were somebody else looking at my character, I'd be like, "She's beautiful." I'm practicing. I'm not succeeding.