Maya Shanbhag Lang > Quotes

“Maybe at our most maternal, we aren’t mothers at all. We’re daughters, reaching back in time for the mothers we wish we’d had and then finding ourselves.”
― Maya Lang, What We Carry: A Memoir

“We all spin stories. That's what we do. We want people to see certain things about us and not others. What matters is whether you let others in to the truest story, the one that's the hardest to tell.”
― Maya Lang, The Sixteenth of June

“How are you holding up?' Stephen had asked in the parking lot, and it had come as a relief. Because even if you don't know the answer, Nora thinks, leaving the foyer, it is nice to be asked.”
― Maya Lang, The Sixteenth of June

“Freedom, on some level, is the right to tell one’s story. We tell stories to assert ourselves, as a constantly morphing declaration of self.”
― Maya Shanbhag Lang, What We Carry: A Memoir

“He cannot bear the thought of being a stereotype.”
― Maya Lang, The Sixteenth of June

“Maybe we pay to be reminded of beauty, to see what was always already before our eyes. I see what I’ve been missing, which has nothing to do with lunch or flowers and everything to do with growing free.”
― Maya Lang, What We Carry: A Memoir

“Until we are in the river, up to our shoulders—until we are in that position ourselves, we cannot know the answer. We tell ourselves we will sacrifice ourselves for our children, but the will to live is very strong.”
― Maya Lang, What We Carry: A Memoir

“A book is a place to lose yourself and then find yourself once more. A book draws you into its world like a charming host. It should not make you regret accepting its invitation.”
― Maya Lang, The Sixteenth of June

“It’s never too late to become what you might have been.”
― Maya Shanbhag Lang, What We Carry: A Memoir

“She is the most capable person I know. I may not always understand her, but I have complete faith in her.”
― Maya Lang, What We Carry: A Memoir

“A family is a battleground of such stories.”
― Maya Shanbhag Lang, What We Carry: A Memoir

“The point is not to understand technology or even to enjoy it. The point is to adapt.”
― Maya Lang, The Sixteenth of June

“It’s not who I wanted my mom to be, but it’s who she was: haughty, self-centered, prejudiced, and, in her own cheap way, a snob. Seeing her plainly means losing the idealized version of her that has existed in my head.”
― Maya Lang, What We Carry: A Memoir

“My mom recognizes me, I tell them. The problem is that I don’t recognize her.”
― Maya Lang, What We Carry: A Memoir

“Kathy looks at me. “You’re a mom, correct?” “Yeah.” “Is your kid always cooperative?” “Well, no, but—” “Probably screams sometimes, right? Has tantrums?” “Well, yes, but—” “It’s the same. Don’t treat her like she’s your mom. Treat her like she’s your kid.”
― Maya Lang, What We Carry: A Memoir

“The vulnerability of the moment surprises me- her face cradled in my hands, her eyes squeezed shut. My face is inches from hers. Her exhaled air is a soft breeze. My breathing slows to match hers.

I wish that every charge under someone's care, every patient and elderly person and body in distress, could know what I experienced in that moment, which is not disgust or repulsion. It is love. You cannot care for a person without thinking of her dignity and beauty, wanting nothing more that to preserve both.
After I finish, she feels her newly smoothed skin. Satisfied, she nods. Then her hand flies up and catches mine. "What person does this for another? I can't believe you did this for me." She smiles and releases me.”
― maya lang

“These were the ridiculous tales of being twenty-two and twenty-five, of being in that happy, malleable phase of postcollege life before everything set in the gray cement of adulthood.”
― Maya Lang, The Sixteenth of June

“Home is the place that's always open.”
― Maya Shanbhag Lang, What We Carry: A Memoir

“There is never any acknowledgment that women hold a power men lack, the greatest power for happiness on earth, their insides magically rearranging themselves to incubate a human.”
― Maya Lang, The Sixteenth of June

“How can I urge her to pursue hers if I don’t pursue mine?”
― Maya Shanbhag Lang, What We Carry: A Memoir

“It's a book in which one finds everything,' Stuart continues sagely. 'I cannot tell you the number of times I've opened its pages and found a line, some passing thought--the most mundane detail--speaking directly to my set of circumstances! One finds it magically relevant, as though Joyce anticipates all. It is the great repository of everything.”
― Maya Lang, The Sixteenth of June

“Stories collide at the table. In your own life, you can establish your own narrative. You don’t have to be the athletic one or the artsy one. You can exist on your own terms.”
― Maya Shanbhag Lang, What We Carry: A Memoir

“She didn’t see that a mother’s story affects a daughter’s choices.”
― Maya Shanbhag Lang, What We Carry: A Memoir

“A story can be a survival mechanism.”
― Maya Shanbhag Lang, What We Carry: A Memoir

“All her life, she saved for a rainy day. She was so busy preparing for rain that she never stopped to feel the sun.”
― Maya Shanbhag Lang, What We Carry: A Memoir

“Stephen's work does not call out to him in this way. It does not speak to him of secrets and stories. He wonders about the woman. He imagines a divorce, something that makes her look away rather than stroke her daughter's hair. To know more about her would be to have some riddle solved. An unwritten novel is in each of us, Woolf would say.”
― Maya Lang, The Sixteenth of June

“How do you get someone back if you don't know where she's gone?”
― Maya Lang, The Sixteenth of June

“Maybe at our most maternal, we aren't mothers at all. We're daughters, reaching back in time for the mothers we wish we'd had and then finding ourselves.”
― Maya Shanbhag Lang, What We Carry: A Memoir

“June is gazing at Michael with a glow about her face, a well of feeling for her husband. Leo and Stephen are also looking at their father, Leo's expression sympathetic, nearly teary. The three of them as they look at Michael are like magnets, the ties drawing each one to him nearly visible. This is what family means, Nora thinks.”
― Maya Lang, The Sixteenth of June