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1 " As immigrants fly across oceans they shed their old clothing because clothes maketh the man and new ones help ease the transition. Men's clothing has less international variations; the change is not so drastic. But those women who are not used to wearing western clothes find themselves in a dilemma. If they focus on integration, convenience and conformity they have to sacrifice habit, style and self-perception. "
― Manju Kapur
2 " There was no aphrodisiac more powerful than talking, no seduction more effective than curiosity. "
3 " When one was reinventing oneself, anywhere could be home. "
― Manju Kapur , The Immigrant
4 " Nina could defend arranged marriages in her sleep, she had been asked about them so often. To her horror, she had even begun to sound like her mother. "
5 " Anchors. You had to be your own anchor. By now there was no escaping this knowledge. Still she had been trained to look for them and despite all that had happened, she had not got over the habit. "
6 " Marry me, love me, above all, look after me. somebody had to be responsible for her, besides herself. That was what women had been led to expect and hardly any price was too high. Loneliness, heartache, denial, all grist to the mill. "
7 " The tradition that refuses to entertain doubt, or remains impervious to new thoughts and ideas, becomes a prison rather than a sustaining life force. "
― Manju Kapur , Difficult Daughters
8 " When one was reinventing oneself, anywhere could be home. Pull up your shallow roots and move. Find a new place, new friends, a new family. It had been possible once, it would be possible again. "
9 " I hate the word ‘simple’. Nobody has any business to live in the world and know nothing about its ways. "
10 " but the habits of frugality ingrained during years of perpetual worry about money, and daily, hourly, weighing of cost and benefit, meant she could never take an auto, not on her birthday, not ever. "
11 " The immigrant who comes as a wife has a more difficult time. If work exists for her, it is in the future and after much finding of feet. At present all she is, is a wife, and a wife is alone for many, many hours. There will come a day when even books are powerless to distract. When the house and its conveniences can no longer completely charm or compensate. Then she realizes she is an immigrant for life. "
12 " Perhaps that was the ultimate immigrant experience. Not that any one thing was steady enough to attach yourself to for the rest of your life, but that you found different ways to belong, ways not necessarily lasting, but ones that made your journey less lonely for a while. When something failed it was a signal to move on. For an immigrant there was no going back. "
