Madhusree

“Laziness in India is infuriating and equals animosity. In Italy it indicates an enjoyment of life’s pleasures. “Candlelight in a trattoria is romance. In India it equals power failure and a testing of romance.”
― Kiran Desai, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny

“To be a citizen of a troubled postcolonial nation gave a person gravitas. To be holding out against the crass new world gave a man gravitas. To be wounded yet fighting on against the barbarians gave one gravitas. To be exiled, abandoned by love and luck, gave them gravitas. What happened within a family, what happened between a couple, was no different from that which happened in a nation under dictatorship, running on fear.”
― Kiran Desai, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny

“It is much easier to explain or elaborate on endings than on beginnings. For endings, you can always say that it ended this way because it had begun that way. Or it ended that way because something popped up in the middle that led there. Beginnings have more amorphous origins.”
― Edwidge Danticat, We're Alone: Essays

“Baldwin replied, “Witness to whence I came, where I am. Witness to what I’ve seen and the possibilities that I think I see.”
― Edwidge Danticat, We're Alone: Essays