Hanif Kureishi Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• Why do people who are good at families have to be smug and assume it is the only way to live. … Why can’t they be blamed for being bad at promiscuity?

  Hanif Kureishi

  People, Way To Live, Assuming

  Hanif Kureishi (2002). “Intimacy and Midnight All Day: A Novel and Stories”, p.38, Simon and Schuster

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• It seemed to me that the real philosophical breakthroughs of the 20th century were in terms of the understanding of language. What is language? Where does it come from, how does it work, what does it do?

  Hanif Kureishi

  Real, Philosophical, Understanding

  "When you're writing, you look for conflict" by Emma Brockes, www.theguardian.com. November 17, 2003.

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• ...I love 'yes.' It's practically the most interesting word of all, don't you think?" Like a hinge opening a door outward. Yes, yes, yes.

  Hanif Kureishi

  Thinking, Doors, Interesting

  Hanif Kureishi (2009). “The Black Album with My Son the Fanatic: A Novel and a Short Story”, p.55, Simon and Schuster

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• My father was a civil servant, so having a regular job, being respectable is a big deal for me. Respectable in the sense that I support my family. That's what I mean by respectability.

  Hanif Kureishi

  Jobs, Father, Mean

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• I'm interested in philosophical psychology, people like Nietzsche, Freud, Alcan, Foucault, Derrida.

  Hanif Kureishi

  Philosophical, People, Psychology

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• All the same, my depression and self-hatred, my desire to mutilate myself with broken bottles, my numbness and crying fits, my inability to get out of bed for days and days, the feeling of the world moving in to crush me, went on and on. But I knew I wouldn't go mad, even if that release, that letting-go, was a freedom I desired. I was waiting for myself to heal.

  Hanif Kureishi

  Depression, Crush, Letting Go

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• I am determined to live without illusions. I want to look at reality straight. Without hiding.

  Hanif Kureishi

  Reality, Looks, Want

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• I began to enjoy my own generosity; I felt the pleasure of pleasing others, especially as this was accompanied by money-power. I was paying for them; they were grateful, they had to be; and they could no longer see me as a failure.

  Hanif Kureishi

  Grateful, Pleasing Others, Generosity

  Hanif Kureishi (2009). “The Buddha of Suburbia”, p.260, Faber & Faber

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• Secrets are my currency: I deal in them for a living. The secrets of desire, of what people really want, and of what they fear the most. The secrets of why love is difficult, sex complicated, living painful and death so close and yet placed far away. Why are pleasure and punishment closely related? How do our bodies speak? Why do we make ourselves ill? Why do you want to fail? Why is pleasure hard to bear?

  Hanif Kureishi

  Sex, Love Is, Punishment

  Hanif Kureishi (2009). “Something to Tell You: A Novel”, p.3, Simon and Schuster

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• My pleasures disappeared with my vices.

  Hanif Kureishi

  Vices, Pleasure

  Hanif Kureishi (2009). “Something to Tell You: A Novel”, p.9, Simon and Schuster

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• My guess is that she is uncomfortable in such an intransigent world but is unable to live accordingly to her own desire.

  Hanif Kureishi

  Desire, World, Uncomfortable

  Hanif Kureishi (2002). “Intimacy and Midnight All Day: A Novel and Stories”, p.147, Simon and Schuster

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• But you're beautiful, and the beautiful should be given whatever they want." "Hey, what about the ugly ones?" "The ugly ones." She poked her tongue out. "It's their fault if their ugly. They're to be blamed, not pitied.

  Hanif Kureishi

  Beautiful, Hey, Ugly

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• Love cannot be measured by its duration.

  Hanif Kureishi

  Duration

  Hanif Kureishi (2002). “Intimacy and Midnight All Day: A Novel and Stories”, p.83, Simon and Schuster

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• I've never had any desire to be good. I don't like goodness particularly.

  Hanif Kureishi

  Desire, Goodness, Be Good

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• You can't spend your life beating yourself up for something that happened yesterday. You die if you don't follow your desire.

  Hanif Kureishi

  Yesterday, Desire, Beating Yourself Up

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• Almost certainly I will not tell her my intentions this evening or tonight. I will put it off. Why? Because words are actions and they make things happen. Once they are out you cannot put them back.

  Hanif Kureishi

  Tonight, Evening, Action

  Hanif Kureishi (2010). “Intimacy”, p.6, Faber & Faber

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• If you get depressed, you can be stuck for months; if you have an analyst, you at least have a chance of getting out of it faster.

  Hanif Kureishi

  Months, Chance, Analysts

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• The cruellest thing you can do to Kerouac is reread him at thirty-eight.

  Hanif Kureishi

  Eight, Thirty Eight, Thirty

  Hanif Kureishi (2009). “The Buddha of Suburbia”, p.11, Faber & Faber

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• I can't sleep with you tonight, baby, my head's all messed up, you've no idea. It's somewhere else and it's full of voices and songs and bad things.

  Hanif Kureishi

  Depression, Song, Baby

  Hanif Kureishi (2009). “The Buddha of Suburbia”, p.164, Faber & Faber

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• Anna Karenina is just a story about a woman falling in love with a bloke who is not her husband. Its gossip, rubbish - on the other hand, its the deepest story there could be about social transgression, about love, betrayal, duty, children.

  Hanif Kureishi

  Falling In Love, Children, Husband

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• For Mum, life was fundamentally hell. You went blind, you got raped, people forgot your birthday, Nixon got elected, your husband fled with a blonde from Beckenham, and then you got old, you couldn't walk and you died.

  Hanif Kureishi

  Husband, People, Blonde

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• But in love each moment is magnified, and every gesture, word and syllable is examined like a speech by the President.

  Hanif Kureishi

  President, Gestures, Speech

  Hanif Kureishi (2016). “Love in a Blue Time”, p.93, Faber & Faber

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• I'm always writing. I'm an obsessive. It's not because I'm a disciplined person. It's because I'm crazy about it.

  Hanif Kureishi

  Crazy, Writing, Obsessive

  "When you're writing, you look for conflict" by Emma Brockes, www.theguardian.com. November 17, 2003.

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• Children, who have yet to learn our ways, are notoriously promiscuous in their affection. They’ll sit on anyone’s knee.

  Hanif Kureishi

  Children, Knees, Way

  Hanif Kureishi (2002). “Intimacy and Midnight All Day: A Novel and Stories”, p.94, Simon and Schuster

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• If jealousy was the vindaloo of love, I'd imagined her tongue burning, and such a fire forcing her to spill her truth.

  Hanif Kureishi

  Fire, Burning, Tongue

  Hanif Kureishi (2009). “Something to Tell You: A Novel”, p.110, Simon and Schuster

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