Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes

I think I'm a lot like other moms out there who feel like if we don't have the pecan pie we have every year, then it just won't be Christmas.

I grew up, as many Indians do, in an archipelago of tongues. My maternal grandfather, who was a surgeon in the city of Madras, was fluent in at least four languages and used each of them daily.

I had the luck that my parents educated me in three languages. With my mother I spoke Dutch, with my father Italian, and in the school I learned German. But my host language is Italian.

When people speak their own language you get a much better sense of who they are.

Powerful vested interests and the forces of conservatism are particularly strong where the observation of Christmas is concerned.

I am only one-eighth the writer I might have been had I contained all the fragmented languages of Trinidad.

When I was young, we didn't celebrate February 14. For us, Valentine's Day meant Saraswati Puja. And just a single day in a year can't be Valentine's Day.

My mother is half Malayali and half Tamilian. I can speak Bengali and Tamil, but can't read or write.

South Africa is really diverse, with many cultures and 11 official languages, so there are lots of different Christmas traditions.

You can separate the church and state all you like, but Christmas is inescapable, and it's marvellous, and it's not going away.

The history of a culture can be determined by its untranslatable words.

Language is the tool of my trade -and I use them all - all the Englishes I grew up with

In South Africa, we speak English and sometimes Afrikaans, sometimes Zulu, sometimes Xhosa.

Besides Christianity and specifically Catholicism being wonderful, Christmas is intrinsic to American culture and worth defending. Think of what happens at Christmas time. People play Mariah Carey Christmas songs... What else do you need in life?

Neither of my parents had English as a first language.

I think it's about the feeling more than a language. And I think that we and every culture in the world has to keep their own language just to bring something else, something different, and show a different vision of the world, actually. And that's why I'm trying to keep my language.

One thing I wish I'd been told in school is that my language is valid.

You don't have to speak English to have sophisticated political opinions.

I am a Bengali, I like my rice.

My mother tongue is Telugu. I was born and brought up in Tamil Nadu.

I'm half Telugu. My mom is Telugu and dad, a Maharashtrian. I was brought up in Gwalior. I was exposed to English, Hindi, and Marathi. I heard my mom speak to her family in Telugu, so I got the hang of it.

Being a Bengali, I have kept in touch with the cinema of my mother tongue.

People ask me all the time, 'What do you do for Cinco de Mayo?' And my honest answer is always, 'When I was growing up in Mexico, nothing. Really, nothing. It was a school day. It was totally normal.' But when I grew up and started going to San Diego and started drinking margaritas, that's when Cinco de Mayo celebrations started for me.

Multilingualism in our nation extends back to several millennia. This multilingualism is an asset, a heritage we have inherited, and is, in fact, a resource we deeply cherish.

I'd say, in some ways, I'm very Bengali. I have a love of the arts - dance, music, visual arts - which I think is a very Bengali trait. I also love food, which I know is very Bengali!