Hanif Kureishi citations

“You don't stop loving someone just because you hate them.”

“Soon we will be strangers. No, we can never be that. Hurting someone is an act of reluctant intimacy. We will be dangerous acquaintances with a history.”

“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.”

“How disturbing it is that our illusions are often our most important beliefs.”

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

“Love cannot be measured by its duration…”

“Without love, most of life remains concealed. Nothing is as fascinating as love, unfortunately.”

“I don't want to be loved. I want to be desired. Love is safety, but desire is foul.”

“Dear God, teach me to be careless.”

“At the deepest level people are madder than they want to believe. You will find that they fear being eaten, and are alarmed by their desire to devour others.”

“Please remove your watch,' he said. 'In my domain time isn't a factor.”

“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?”

“Our lives can only be lived forward and understood backwards. Living a life and understanding it occupy different dimensions.”

“No amount of promises can guarantee love”

“Yes, Eleanor loathed herself and yet required praise, which she then never believed.”

“What a quality of innocence people have when they don't expect to be harmed.”

“… 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.”

“Nothing can be repaired or advanced but only accepted”

“Security and safety were the reward of dullness.”

“The vocation of each writer is to describe the world as he or she sees it; anything more than that is advertising.”

“you can’t just let people down, dammit.”

“They gave us the language but it is only we who know how to use it”