Jhumpa Lahiri

Writing is one of the most assertive things a person can do.

I am drawn to any story that makes me want to read from one sentence to the next. I have no other criterion.

The first sentence of a book is a handshake, perhaps an embrace. Style and personality are irrelevant. They can be formal or casual. They can be tall or short or fat or thin. They can obey the rules or break them. But they need to contain a charge. A live current, which shocks and illuminates. J

 Isolation offered its own form of companionship: the reliable silence of her rooms, the steadfast tranquility of the evenings. The promise that she would find things where she put them, that there would be no interruption, no surprise. It greeted her at the end of each day and lay still with her at night.  

Being a writer means taking the leap from listening to saying 'Listen to me'.

Jhumpa Lahiri