Each person’s life is dominated by a central event, which shapes and distorts everything that comes after it and, in retrospect, everything that came before.
Suketu MehtaRead
It was when I realised I had a new nationality: I was in exile. I am an adulterous resident: when I am in one city, I am dreaming of the other. I am an exile; citizen of the country of longing.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects the feeling of being torn between two places, illustrating the pain of longing for a home that may no longer exist.
Suketu Mehta's quote speaks to the profound experience of feeling like an outsider, simultaneously belonging to two places yet feeling at home in neither. The concept of exile is not merely a physical state but a deep emotional reality where one's identity is shaped by longing and the unfulfilled desire for connection to a place that resonates with their innermost self.
Themes
ExileLongingIdentityNationalityBelonging
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech about migration and identity, this quote can highlight the emotional struggles faced by expatriates.
More from Suketu Mehta
All quotes →Similar quotes
States organized for war will make war as surely as hens will lay eggs.
H. G. WellsRead
Swans live wherever there is water, and leave the place where water dries up; let not a man act so - and comes and goes as he pleases.
ChanakyaRead
Be The Peace You Wish To See In The World!
Martin Luther King, Jr.Read
For John was running, and this was terrible. Because if you ran, time ran. You yelled and screamed and raced and rolled and tumbled and all of a sudden the sun was gone and the whistle was blowing and you were on your long way home to supper. When you weren't looking, the sun got around behind you! The only way to keep things slow was to watch everything and do nothing! You could stretch a day to three days, sure, just by watching!
Ray BradburyRead
If any one idea can justly be called the American idea, it is that a child's circumstances at birth should not determine the station in life that that child will occupy as an adult.
Steven WeinbergRead
Our constitutional system is defined by a balance between the public's need for transparency and the government's need to have a zone of secrecy around decision making. Both are important, yet they are mutually exclusive.
Neal KatyalRead