Quotes from book
Call Me By Your Name

André Aciman

Call Me by Your Name is a 2007 coming-of-age novel written by Italian-American writer André Aciman. Set in the 1980s, the novel centers on the sudden and powerful romance that blossoms between student Elio Perlman and visiting American scholar Oliver, chronicling their relationship and the 20 years that follow. A sequel, Find Me, was released in October 2019.

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“Perhaps the physical and the metaphorical meanings are clumsy ways of understanding what happens when two beings need, not just to be close together, but to become so totally ductile that each becomes the other. To be who I am because of you. To be who he was because of me. To be in his mouth while he was in mine and no longer know whose it was, his cock or mine, that was in my mouth. He was my secret conduit to myself—like a catalyst that allows us to become who we are [...].”

André Aciman book Call Me By Your Name

Part 2, p. 143
Call Me By Your Name (2007)

André Aciman photo

“Later!”

André Aciman book Call Me By Your Name

The word, the voice, the attitude.
I'd never heard anyone use "later" to say goodbye before. It sounded harsh, curt, and dismisive, spoken with the veiled indifference of people who may not care to see or hear from you again.
It is the first thing I remember about him, and I can hear it still today. Later!
Part 1
Call Me By Your Name (2007)

André Aciman photo

“It never occurred to me that I had brought him not just to show him my little world, but to ask my little world to let him in, so that the place where I came to be alone on summer afternoons would get to know him, judge him, see if he fitted in, take him in, so that I might come back here and remember.”

André Aciman book Call Me By Your Name

Part 2, p. 77
Call Me By Your Name (2007)

André Aciman photo

“He was waiting for me to say something. He was staring at me. This, I think, is the first time I dared myself to stare back at him. Usually, I'd cast a glance and then look away—look away because I didn't want to swim in the lovely, clear pool of his eyes unless I'd been invited to—and I never waited long enough to know whether I was even wanted there; look away because I was too scared to stare anyone back; look away because I didn't want to give anything away; look away because I couldn't acknowledge how much he mattered. Look away because that steely gaze of his always reminded me of how tall he stood and how far below him ranked.”

André Aciman book Call Me By Your Name

Part 2, p. 78
Call Me By Your Name (2007)

André Aciman photo

“I stopped for a second. If you remember everything, I wanted to say, and if you are really like me, then before you leave tomorrow, or when you're just ready to shut the door of the taxi and have already said goodbye to everyone else and there's not a thing left to say in this life, then, just this once, turn to me, even in jest, or as an afterthought, which would have meant everything to me when we were together, and, as you did back then, look me in the face, hold my gaze, and call me by your name.”

André Aciman book Call Me By Your Name

Explicit
Call Me By Your Name (2007)

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