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My life has gotten a little more complicated than my ability to describe it. That used to be the definition of madness, now it’s just continuous overload.

Bharati Mukherjee

In India, there are real consequences to inattention; drivers who jeopardize pedestrians can be lynched on the spot.
BHARATI MUKHERJEE

Inattention India Real
Through my fiction, I make mainstream readers see the new Americans as complex human beings, not as just The Other.
BHARATI MUKHERJEE

Fiction Mainstream Reader
A farmer is dependent on too many things outside his control; it makes for modesty.
BHARATI MUKHERJEE

Farmers Farming Modesty
The picture of Mother Teresa that I remember from my childhood is of a short, sari-wearing woman scurrying down a red gravel path between manicured lawns.
BHARATI MUKHERJEE

Childhood Mother Two
[On her writing agenda:] Make the familiar exotic; the exotic familiar.
BHARATI MUKHERJEE

Agendas Exotic Writing
You see for me, America is an idea. It is a stage for transformation. I felt when I came to Iowa City from Calcutta that suddenly I could be a new person . . . What America offers me is romanticism and hope . . . Suddenly, I found myself in a country where
BHARATI MUKHERJEE

Cities Country Iowa
In the context of lost causes, Mother Teresa took on battles she knew she could win. Taken together, it seems to me, the criticisms of her work do not undermine or topple her overall achievement.
BHARATI MUKHERJEE

Battles Criticisms Mother Overall Toppel
My life has gotten a little more complicated than my ability to describe it. That used to be the definition of madness, now it’s just continuous overload.
BHARATI MUKHERJEE

Definitions Littles Madness
Ancestral habits of mind can be constricting; they also confer one’s individuality.
BHARATI MUKHERJEE

Individuality Mind Roots
I am aware of myself as a four-hundred-year-old woman, born in the captivity of a colonial, pre-industrial oral culture and living now as a contemporary New Yorker.
BHARATI MUKHERJEE

Captivity Four Years
My first novel, ‘The Tiger’s Daughter,’ embodies the loneliness I felt but could not acknowledge, even to myself, as I negotiated the no man’s land between the country of my past and the continent of my present.
BHARATI MUKHERJEE

Country Daughter Mother
We do things when it is our time to do them. They do not occur to us until it is time; they cannot be resisted, once their time has come. It’s a question of time, not motive.
BHARATI MUKHERJEE

Motive Time
I had never walked on the street alone when I was growing up in Calcutta, up to age 20. I had never handled money.
BHARATI MUKHERJEE

Couple Growing Notebook Up
But, Christ, there’s a difference between exotic and foreign, isn’t there? Exotic means you know how to use your foreignness, or you make yourself a little foreign in order to appear exotic. Real foreign is a little scary, believe me.
BHARATI MUKHERJEE

Believe Mean Real
You know, there was always a couple of bodyguards behind me, who took care if I wanted… I needed pencils for school, I needed a notebook, they were the ones who were taking out the money. I was constantly guarded.
BHARATI MUKHERJEE

Moment Needed School Taking
I’m sorry, this is too much work, I’m going to try applying for call center jobs. The pay is better.’
BHARATI MUKHERJEE

Better Pay Sorry Work

My life has gotten a little more complicated than my ability to describe it. That used to be the definition of madness, now it’s just continuous overload.

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My life has gotten a little more complicated than my ability to describe it. That used to be the definition of madness, now it’s just continuous overload.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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