The Namesake

by Jhumpa Lahiri

He heard his father cry out—they had left the camera with his mother. “All this way, and no picture,” he’d said, shaking his head. He reached into his pocket and began to throw the striped stones into the water. “We will have to remember it, then.”

“How long do I have to remember it?”

Best line said by any child—real or imagined—ever.

“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.