I take six or seven years to write really small books. There is a kind of aesthetic of leanness, of brevity.
Mohsin HamidRead
Some of my relatives held on to imagined memories the way homeless people hold onto lottery tickets. Nostalgia was their crack cocaine, if you will, and my childhood was littered with the consequences of their addiction : unserviceable debts, squabbles over inheritances, the odd alcoholic or suicide.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on how people can clutch onto false memories, causing turmoil in their relationships and lives due to their nostalgia.
In this quote, Mohsin Hamid uses the metaphor of lottery tickets to illustrate how some of his relatives cling to imagined memories as if they were precious. This nostalgia, likened to an addiction, can lead to destructive consequences, including family disputes and personal tragedies. The quote highlights the dangers of living in the past and how it can undermine relationships and well-being.
Themes
NostalgiaMemoriesRelationshipsAddictionConsequences
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a family therapy session to discuss the impact of nostalgia on family dynamics.
More from Mohsin Hamid
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Stories helped me unite parts of my existence that might otherwise have seemed irrevocably split by geography and time. And stories helped me find a future in which I, such a mongrel, could be comfortable.
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I think there's a growing courage among the younger generation of American writers. Because of the more superficial treatment of characters taking place in cinema, they have had to deal with that by digging deeper into who these people are.
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Part of the reason people abroad resent the United States is something Americans can do very little about: envy. The richest, most powerful country in the world attracts the jealousy of others in much the same way that the richest, most powerful man in a small town attracts the jealousy of others.
Mohsin HamidRead
I think that when we take the long view, the notion that some people are deemed less worthy of being able to move - to not have the right to cross borders - over time, that's going to seem as outmoded and as unfair, really, as racial discrimination or other kinds of discrimination.
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