Quotes from The Namesake

“That's the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, quote from The Namesake

“You are still young, free.. Do yourself a favor. Before it's too late, without thinking too much about it first, pack a pillow and a blanket and see as much of the world as you can. You will not regret it. One day it will be too late.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, quote from The Namesake

“They were things for which it was impossible to prepare but which one spent a lifetime looking back at, trying to accept, interpret, comprehend. Things that should never have happened, that seemed out of place and wrong, these were what prevailed, what endured, in the end.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, quote from The Namesake

“Try to remember it always," he said once Gogol had reached him, leading him slowly back across the breakwater, to where his mother and Sonia stood waiting. "Remember that you and I made this journey together to a place where there was nowhere left to go.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, quote from The Namesake

“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.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, quote from The Namesake

“Pack a pillow and blanket and see as much of the world as you can.You will not regret it.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, quote from The Namesake

“She has the gift of accepting her life.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, quote from The Namesake

“Though no longer pregnant, she continues, at times, to mix Rice Krispies and peanuts and onions in a bowl. For being a foreigner Ashima is beginning to realize, is a sort of lifelong pregnancy -- a perpetual wait, a constant burden, a continuous feeling out of sorts. It is an ongoing responsibility, a parenthesis in what had once been an ordinary life, only to discover that previous life has vanished, replaced by something more complicated and demanding. Like pregnancy, being a foreigner, Ashima believes, is something that elicits the same curiosity of from strangers, the same combination of pity and respect.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, quote from The Namesake

“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.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, quote from The Namesake

“Remember that you and I made this journey together to a place where there was nowhere left to go.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, quote from The Namesake

“One hand, five homes. A lifetime in a fist.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, quote from The Namesake

“Somehow, bad news, however ridden with static, however filled with echoes, always manages to be conveyed.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, quote from The Namesake

“You remind me of everything that followed.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, quote from The Namesake

“Do what I will never do.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, quote from The Namesake

“But she has gathered that Americans, in spite of their public declarations of affection, in spite of their miniskirts and bikinis, in spite of their hand-holding on the street and lying on top of each other on the Cambridge Common, prefer their privacy.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, quote from The Namesake

“In so many ways, his family's life feels like a string of accidents, unforeseen, unintended, one incident begetting another...They were things for which it was impossible to prepare but which one spent a lifetime looking back at, trying to accept, interpret, comprehend. Things that should never have happened, that seemed out of place and wrong, these were what prevailed, what endured, in the end.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, quote from The Namesake

“Will you remember this day, Gogol?" his father had asked, turning back to look at him, his hands pressed like earmuffs to either side of his head. "How long do I have to remember it?" Over the rise and fall of the wind, he could hear his father's laughter. He was standing there, waiting for Gogol to catch up, putting out a hand as Gogol drew near. "Try to remember it always," he said once Gogol reached him, leading him slowly back across the breakwater, to where his mother and Sonia stood waiting. "Remember that you and I made this journey, that we went together to a place where there was nowhere left to go.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, quote from The Namesake

“On a sticky August evening two weeks before her due date, Ashima Ganguli stands in the kitchen of a Central Square apartment, combining Rice Krispies and Planters peanuts and chopped red onion in bowl.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, quote from The Namesake

“Pet names are a persistent remnant of childhood, a reminder that life is not always so serious, so formal, so complicated.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, quote from The Namesake

“Is that what you think of when you think of me?" Gogol asks him. "Do I remind you of that night"?

"Not at all", his father says eventually, one hand going to his ribs, a habitual gesture that has baffled Gogol until now. "You remind me of everything that followed.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, quote from The Namesake

“Gogol remembers having to do the same thing when he was younger, when his grandparents died...He remembers, back then, being bored by it, annoyed at having to observe a ritual no one else he knew followed, in honor of people he had seen only a few times in his life...Now, sitting together at the kitchen table at six-thirty every evening, his father's chair empty, this meatless meal is the only thing that seems to make sense.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, quote from The Namesake

“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.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, quote from The Namesake

“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.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, quote from The Namesake

“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.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, quote from The Namesake

“...that in spite of living in a mansion an American is not above wearing a pair of secondhand pants, bought for fifty cents.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, quote from The Namesake

“My grandfather always says that's what books are for. To travel without moving an inch.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, quote from The Namesake

“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.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, quote from The Namesake

“In the days that follow, he begins to remember things about Moushumi, images that come to him without warning while he is sitting at his desk at work, or during a meeting, or drifting off to sleep, or standing in the mornings under the shower. They are scenes he has carried within him, buried but intact, scenes he has never thought about or had reason to conjure up until now.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, quote from The Namesake

“Without a single grandparent or parent or uncle or aunt at her side, the baby’s birth, like most everything else in America, feels somehow haphazard, only half true. As she strokes and suckles and studies her son, she can’t help but pity him. She has never known of a person entering the world so alone, so deprived.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, quote from The Namesake

“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.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, quote from The Namesake

About the author

Popular quotes

“There's a curse on me as there's a curse on the Larkin name. The curse comes back, again and again, to taunt me! Ronan! Kilty! Tomas! And now me! What are the Irish among men? Are we lepers? Are we a blight? Will there ever be an end to our tears?”
― Leon Uris, quote from Trinity

“It isn't the big troubles in life that require character. Anybody can rise to a crisis and face a crushing tragedy with courage, but to meet the petty hazards of the day with a laugh—I really think that requires spirit!”
― Jean Webster, quote from Daddy-Long-Legs

“One moment the world is as it is. The next, it is something entirely different. Something it has never been before.”
― Anne Rice, quote from Pandora

“I have never distinguished readily between thinking and dreaming. I know my life would be much different if I could ever say, This I have learned from my senses, while that I have merely imagined.”
― Marilynne Robinson, quote from Housekeeping

“But the romantic atmosphere only heightened his feeling of icy fatness.”
― Nathanael West, quote from Miss Lonelyhearts / The Day of the Locust

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.