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I think it's the small things, the smaller episodes and details that I linger on and try to draw meaning from, just personally.

- Jhumpa Lahiri
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Author:
Jhumpa Lahiri
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Small Things
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If I stop to think about fans, or best-selling, or not best-selling, or good reviews, or not-good reviews, it just becomes too much. It's like staring at the mirror all day.

I have two passports because I have to have at least one, and I really don't know how I define myself. And I feel that as I get older, I feel very fortunate to have, on paper, a dual nationality.

Oddly, I feel more protected when I write in Italian, even though I'm also more exposed.

Language, identity, place, home: these are all of a piece - just different elements of belonging and not-belonging.

Language and identity are so fundamentally intertwined. You peel back all the layers in terms of what we wear and what we eat and all the things that mark us, and in the end, what we have are our words.

I had been learning Italian for years. I always loved Latin, but Italian is a living language; I'm writing in it now as well as reading it. It is so interesting delving further into language.

My father encouraged me to work in the library, just because it was the world that he knew. But I also wanted to do it. I also wanted to work in the library and be part of the library somehow, because it represented a world that really wasn't represented in my home, and I wanted it to be.

I've always been searching to arrive at a certain voice that will probably elude me forever.

It was very hard for me, for most of my life, to feel American, or call myself American, and that is a very complicated topic that would require a very long conversation.

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I think it's the small things, the smaller episodes and details that I linger on and try to draw meaning from, just personally.

I think it's the small things, the smaller episodes and details that I linger on and try to draw meaning from, just personally.

I think it's the small things, the smaller episodes and details that I linger on and try to draw meaning from, just personally.

I think it's the small things, the smaller episodes and details that I linger on and try to draw meaning from, just personally.

I think it's the small things, the smaller episodes and details that I linger on and try to draw meaning from, just personally.

I think it's the small things, the smaller episodes and details that I linger on and try to draw meaning from, just personally.

I think it's the small things, the smaller episodes and details that I linger on and try to draw meaning from, just personally.

I think it's the small things, the smaller episodes and details that I linger on and try to draw meaning from, just personally.

I think it's the small things, the smaller episodes and details that I linger on and try to draw meaning from, just personally.

I think it's the small things, the smaller episodes and details that I linger on and try to draw meaning from, just personally.

I think it's the small things, the smaller episodes and details that I linger on and try to draw meaning from, just personally.

I think it's the small things, the smaller episodes and details that I linger on and try to draw meaning from, just personally.

I think it's the small things, the smaller episodes and details that I linger on and try to draw meaning from, just personally.

I think it's the small things, the smaller episodes and details that I linger on and try to draw meaning from, just personally.

I think it's the small things, the smaller episodes and details that I linger on and try to draw meaning from, just personally.