Hanif Kureishi Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• If you never left anything or anyone there would be no room for the new. Naturally, to move on is an infidelity -- to others, to the past, to old notions of oneself. Perhaps every day should contain at least one essential infidelity or necessary betrayal. It would be an optimistic, hopeful act, guaranteeing belief in the future -- a declaration that things can be not only different but better.

  Hanif Kureishi

  Betrayal, Moving, Optimistic

  Hanif Kureishi (2010). “Intimacy”, p.7, Faber & Faber

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• 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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• Falling in love was simple; one had only to yield. Digesting another person, however, and sustaining love, was bloody work, and not a soft job.

  Hanif Kureishi

  Relationship, Falling In Love, Jobs

  Hanif Kureishi (2002). “Intimacy and Midnight All Day: A Novel and Stories”, p.218, Simon and Schuster

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• Security and safety were the reward of dullness.

  Hanif Kureishi

  Safety, Rewards, Dullness

  Hanif Kureishi (2009). “The Buddha of Suburbia”, p.9, Faber & Faber

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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

  6 Copy quote

• 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 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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

  17 Copy quote

• No amount of promises can guarantee love

  Hanif Kureishi

  Promise, Guarantees, Amount

  Hanif Kureishi (2016). “Love in a Blue Time”, p.165, Faber & Faber

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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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• One would hope, as well that intimacy would leave more of a mark, that more of it would remain. But it doesn’t. You just end up thinking, who is this person?

  Hanif Kureishi

  Thinking, Intimacy, Ends

  Hanif Kureishi (2009). “The Black Album”, p.37, Faber & Faber

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• Like you, she will have been with other people, but I've got a feeling there's something between you.

  Hanif Kureishi

  People, Feelings, Like You

  Hanif Kureishi (2009). “Something to Tell You: A Novel”, p.81, Simon and Schuster

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