Bharati Mukherjee Quotes

Though my grandmother had picked up modern ideas in America, she still had some conflicting 19th-century Irish notions. She believed that daughters, educated though they may be, should continue to live at home until they were married.

'Sour Heart' is a collection of seven linked short stories narrated by young Chinese-American girls living in New York City in the '90s. It's exceptionally hard to describe what I've written without sounding delusional or boring, so I'll just say they are stories about growing up and the pleasures and agonies of having a family, a body, and a home.

I really identified with Pocahontas' struggles as a young woman trying to identify herself in a modern, changing world and trying to stay true to her culture and heritage.

My mother was born on a tiny farm in County Mayo. She was meant to stay at home and look after the farm while her brother and sister got an education. However, she came to England on a visit and never went back.

I always stay with my parents. When you come home, you gotta do that. It's weird to be like, 'Hey, I'm at a hotel. Drive 20 minutes to see me, and we'll have dinner.'

I loved 'Ghana Must Go' by Taiye Selasi. It's about a first-generation African family living in America that has to return home to Nigeria when their estranged father passes away.

When we are kids, we imagine that to define ourselves or to find ourselves means charting your own individuality, making your own destiny, and actually running away from your parents and your home and what you grew up with. Of course, as the years go on, we come to find that we become our parents.

I never wanted to disappoint my family at all.

In many Asian households, to not go on to higher education, that's like a big no-no. I know my parents' discouragement was for my own protection, and I'm really close to them now, but they didn't understand that there is value in this. That's because they didn't know.

The very first role I ever played was as a 17-year old South African girl who dreamed of being a star and left home to meet her mother in the big city so that she could pursue that dream. I left South Africa and met my mother in Vancouver and not long after that was given the opportunity to perform on the stage and have people chant my name.

I can't move back to England. My home is in France now. I'd love to but I can't. My family's all there now.

I love my parents. But I'm almost 28 and it's not fun to be asked, 'What are you doing today? What do you want for dinner? When are you going to be home?' It just makes you feel like a kid. It's this juxtaposition of feeling annoyed and really lucky to have people who love you so much.

Dad's Jewish and Irish, Mom's German and Scotch. I couldn't say I was anything. My last name isn't even Downey. My dad changed his name when he wanted to get into the Army and was underage. My real name is Robert Elias. I feel like I'm still looking for a home in some way.

No matter how American I become, I'm considered part of the Chinese community by my own family.

'Middlesex' by Jeffrey Eugenides left me both moved and, at times, laughing out loud in delight.

The idea that the family is this locus of support but can also hold you back and keep you down makes for good drama.

Home is where my dignity lives, not necessarily where my ancestors put down roots.

My parents were attached to Russian culture by a thousand ineradicable ties. But they did not cut me off from American society, nor could they have. I assimilated wholeheartedly, found my parents in many ways embarrassing, and allowed my Russian to decline through neglect.

Returning to your family and where you came from, and your history... this is what makes you strong. It's not looking out that's going to do that - it's looking in.

I've thought for years, sometimes against my will, about what kind of son I'm supposed to be, what's expected. Being Korean, that's a particularly charged question. Is your duty to your culture or to your parent? Is your life your own, or the second half of your parents' life? Who owns your life?

Being an immigrant myself, but feeling very American, and also being the child of immigrants, I understand the feeling of wanting a home.

One of the hard things coming from an immigrant family - or any family that doesn't believe in the arts - is that you have to disappoint your parents. That's hard for people to do if you're a good kid.

When you come from a place and an identity, you can feel constricted and have to get away. But then you realise how much a part of you it is.

As a lonely teenager growing up in Virginia, I fed off any pop culture that could show me different ways of being from what I saw on 'The Cosby Show' reruns or read about in an Ann M. Martin book.

I've grown up a lot in England.