Aleksandar Hemon Quotes

Quotes about:

• Home is where somebody notices when you are no longer there.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Home, Understanding, Deep Thought

  Aleksandar Hemon (2009). “The Lazarus Project”, p.3, Pan Macmillan

  53 Copy quote

• I loved you because there was no other place for me to go. We were married because we did not know what else to do with each other. You never knew me, nothing about me, what died inside me, what lived invisibly.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Married, I Loved You, Died

  46 Copy quote

• The perfect borscht is what life should be but never is.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Perfect, Should, Borscht

  Aleksandar Hemon (2013). “The Book of My Lives”, p.38, Macmillan

  36 Copy quote

• In some way there is no real life. It's always the story of your life that you're living.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Real, Real Life, Stories

  "There Is No Real Life". Interview with Brad Fox, www.guernicamag.com. March 15, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

• Belief and delusion are incestuous siblings.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Sibling, Belief, Delusion

  Aleksandar Hemon (2009). “The Lazarus Project”, p.40, Pan Macmillan

  24 Copy quote

• When I look at my old pictures, all I can see is what I used to be but am no longer. I think: What I can see is what I am not.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Thinking, Looks, Used

  Aleksandar Hemon (2009). “The Lazarus Project”, p.76, Pan Macmillan

  86 Copy quote

• If you can't go home, there is nowhere to go, and nowhere is the biggest place in the world-indeed, nowhere is the world.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Home, Nowhere To Go, World

  Aleksandar Hemon (2008). “The Lazarus Project”, p.125, Penguin

  13 Copy quote

• I want a book to contain a world - indeed the world. Writing is my main means of engagement with the world and I want the scars of that engagement to be left in the language.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Book, Writing, Mean

  Interview with Colum McCann, www.believermag.com. January, 2010.

  4 Copy quote

• My skin was the border between the world and me.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Skins, Borders, World

  Aleksandar Hemon (2012). “The Question of Bruno”, p.13, Pan Macmillan

  4 Copy quote

• I gradually became aware that my interiority was inseparable from my exteriority, that the geography of my city was the geography of my soul.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Cities, Soul, Geography

  14 Copy quote

• Lord, why did you leave me in these woods?

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Woods, Lord, Leaving Me

  Aleksandar Hemon (2009). “The Lazarus Project”, p.171, Pan Macmillan

  6 Copy quote

• I write and read with the assumption that literature contains knowledge of human experience that is not available otherwise.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Writing, Literature, Assumption

  Interview with Colum McCann, www.believermag.com. January, 2010.

  4 Copy quote

• We knew - but didn't want to know - what was going to happen, the sky descending upon our heads like the shadow of a falling piano in a cartoon.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Fall, Sky, Piano

  Aleksandar Hemon (2010). “Love and Obstacles”, p.66, Pan Macmillan

  13 Copy quote

• One builds one's life in consistency; one invests it with the belief, however unsupported by reality, that one has always been what one is now, that even in one's distant past one could recognize the seed from which this doomed flower has bloomed.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Flower, Past, Reality

  Aleksandar Hemon (2010). “Love and Obstacles”, p.155, Pan Macmillan

  11 Copy quote

• There are moments in life when it is all turned inside out--what is real becomes unreal, what is unreal becomes tangible, and all your levelheaded efforts to keep a tight ontological control are rendered silly and indulgent.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Real, Silly, Effort

  Aleksandar Hemon (2008). “The Lazarus Project”, p.39, Penguin

  8 Copy quote

• I don't think that everyone should have a philosophical answer to any given question. There are things that need to be done.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Philosophical, Thinking, Should Have

  "There Is No Real Life". Interview with Brad Fox, www.guernicamag.com. March 15, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

• I believe people are much more complicated than they can handle.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Believe, People, Complicated

  "There Is No Real Life". Interview with Brad Fox, www.guernicamag.com. March 15, 2013.

  5 Copy quote

• I like the idea of a book being a democratic space which readers enter, carrying their own thoughts, and participate in a conversation, or experience of grace.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Book, Ideas, Space

  Interview with Colum McCann, www.believermag.com. January, 2010.

  5 Copy quote

• I don't believe in inspiration. I write when I can't avoid writing anymore.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Believe, Inspiration, Writing

  "There Is No Real Life". Interview with Brad Fox, www.guernicamag.com. March 15, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

• There's no bad writing; you did something. I was operating inside language, and I did something. I'm not ashamed of it.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Writing, Bad Writing, Language

  "The Sunday Rumpus Interview: Aleksandar Hemon". Interview with Rachel Dewoskin, therumpus.net. April 14, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

• You devise ways to tell a story that complies with your sensibility. Style and method are really extensions of your present sensibility.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Style, Stories, Way

  "There Is No Real Life". Interview with Brad Fox, www.guernicamag.com. March 15, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

• Europe has never been a monolithic space, it contains a lot of people, a lot of languages and infinite supplies of history. I didn't need to do anything to showcase diversity. It is a condition of life and art in Europe, contained in every random sample.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Art, Diversity, People

  "Against Eternal Provincialism: An Interview with Aleksandar Hemon". The Amazon Book Review Interview, www.amazonbookreview.com. December 16, 2009.

  7 Copy quote

• The funny thing is that in Bosnia there are no words that are equivalent to fiction and nonfiction. From the storytelling point of view, the difference is artificial.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Differences, Views, Funny Things

  "There Is No Real Life". Interview with Brad Fox, www.guernicamag.com. March 15, 2013.

  5 Copy quote

• I much preferred winning to thinking and I didn't like losing at all.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Winning, Thinking, Losing

  14 Copy quote

• I have two homes, like someone who leaves their hometown and/or parents and then establishes a life elsewhere. They might say that they're going home when they return to see old friends or parents, but then they go home as well when they go to where they live now. Sarajevo is home, Chicago is home.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Home, Two, Parent

  4 Copy quote

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