
Humor's the hardest thing to translate. —
Bharati Mukherjee

Dullness is a kind of luxury. —
Bharati Mukherjee

Rebellion sounded like a lot of fun, but in Calcutta there was nothing to rebel against. Where would it get you? —
Bharati Mukherjee

I thought of America as Natalie Wood and Bob Wagner sprawled on the edge of a Hollywood swimming pool biting into the same red apple. —
Bharati Mukherjee

I feel empowered to be a different kind of writer. The longer I stay here, the more light filters into my work. I feel very American. I belong. —
Bharati Mukherjee

I am a naturalized U.S. citizen, which means that, unlike native-born citizens, I had to prove to the U.S. government that I merited citizenship. —
Bharati Mukherjee

I have tried very hard as a novelist to say, 'Novels are about individuals and especially larger than life individuals.' —
Bharati Mukherjee

What was the function of poetry if not to improve the petty, cautious minds of evasive children? —
Bharati Mukherjee

The world is divided between those who stay and those who leave. —
Bharati Mukherjee

It's making life important, making a single life important, rather than having a prescription for the global ills which afflict us. —
Bharati Mukherjee

Love on the decline is hard to tell from love on the rise." [From 'The Lady from Lucknow'] —
Bharati Mukherjee

Through my fiction, I make mainstream readers see the new Americans as complex human beings, not as just 'The Other.' —
Bharati Mukherjee

The divorced Indian lady combines every fantasy about the liberated, wicked Western woman with the safety net of basic submissive familiarity. —
Bharati Mukherjee

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

Ancestral habits of mind can be constricting; they also confer one's individuality. —
Bharati Mukherjee