Echoes Across Time

The Family You Carry

The grief inside family history — what is inherited, what is lost. Gabriel García Márquez, Jhumpa Lahiri, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Juan Rulfo, Anna Akhmatova — what follows you into adulthood that you can't entirely leave behind.

32 total quotes

“
We believe the one we love cannot be truly lost to us.

—Yaa GyasiNovelist

Digital Age ERA • West Africa

“
Family—it was a knot, a tangle, a net from which one could not escape.

—Anita DesaiNovelist & Writer

Late Modern ERA • South Asia

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All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

—Leo TolstoyNovelist & Philosopher

Industrial Age ERA • Eastern Europe

“
Our lives were like the Mississippi: always moving, always changing, always carrying debris.

—Jesmyn WardNovelist & Editor

Digital Age ERA • North America

“
The eye does not tire of weeping for a noble man lost.

—Al-KhansaPoet

Medieval ERA • MENA

“
Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

—Leo TolstoyNovelist & Philosopher

Industrial Age ERA • Eastern Europe

“
The dead weigh more than the living, even if they are only shadows.

—Juan RulfoNovelist, Writer & Author

Post-War ERA • Latin America

“
We think we are escaping the past, but the past is always with us.

—Madeleine ThienNovelist

Digital Age ERA • East Asia

“
Home is where the heart breaks, again and again, and still we return.

—R. Zamora LinmarkNovelist & Poet

Late Modern ERA • Southeast Asia

“
My mother tongue is the house I carry on my back.

—Meena AlexanderPoet & Memoirist

Contemporary ERA • South Asia

“
What is a self, if not a story told in a borrowed tongue?

—Meena AlexanderPoet & Memoirist

Late Modern ERA • South Asia

“
We are all haunted by something we did not choose.

—Fatima BhuttoAuthor & Journalist

Digital Age ERA • South Asia

“
A person does not belong to a place until there is someone dead under the ground.

—Gabriel García MárquezNovelist

Post-War ERA • Latin America

“
There are no women in Pakistan. There are only shadows in the shape of women.

—Sara SuleriCritic & Memoirist

Late Modern ERA • South Asia

“
I came to Comala because I was told my father lived there. My mother told me.

—Juan RulfoNovelist, Writer & Author

Post-War ERA • Latin America

“
Home is where the heart breaks and is rebuilt again and again.

—Rosario FerréNovelist, Writer & Essayist

Late Modern ERA • Caribbean

“
To be a Bengali is to be nostalgic for something you've never known.

—Jhumpa LahiriAuthor

Contemporary ERA • South Asia

“
Children carry their parents’ unspoken pains, sometimes without knowing why.

—Akwaeke EmeziAuthor

Digital Age ERA • West Africa

“
We all came out of one darkness, and we will all return to another.

—Jhumpa LahiriAuthor

Contemporary ERA • South Asia

“
A tear dried in the eye is more painful than one that falls.

—PremchandWriter

Early Modern ERA • South Asia

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