"The Namesake" Quotes

She has no desire to get to know anyone, least of all her husband's relatives, who are foreigners in every sense.

But it's one thing to have reservations about a distant relative, another to discover that you are related to someone who is famous, even legendary.

There are times when he feels like an imposter in his own life, times when he forgets who he is and how he got here.

For being a foreigner, Ashima is beginning to realize, is a sort of lifelong pregnancy—a perpetual wait, a constant burden, a continuous feeling out of sorts.

The only way to live, Gogol thinks, is to strip everything of its meaning, to be disinherited, to regard the world as a foreigner, as a traveler does.

That's the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet.

That's the thing about remembering, she realizes. You can't remember everything, and sometimes you can't remember anything.

It is only after Gogol has been a husband that he understands the nature of love.

She has always been afraid, to some degree, and even now she feels certain that something terrible is about to happen.

It is a rare thing to find somebody you can bare your soul to, she knows, and she is thankful, every day, that she has found him.