She learned that an act intended to express love could have nothing to do with it. That her heart and her body were different things.
Jhumpa LahiriIt didn't matter that I wore clothes from Sears; I was still different. I looked different. My name was different. I wanted to pull away from the things that marked my parents as being different.
Jhumpa LahiriPet 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 LahiriThat the last two letters in her name were the first two in his, a silly thing he never mentioned to her but caused him to believe that they were bound together.
Jhumpa Lahiri