“Wanting to test desire is nothing more than a ruse to get what we want without admitting that we want it.” — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“What I didn’t realize was that wanting to test desire is nothing more than a ruse to get what we want without… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“Fire like fear, like panic, like one more minute of this and I'll die if he doesn't knock at my door, but… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“Did I want to be like him? Did I want to be him? Or did I just want to have him? Or… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“What if my body—just my body, my heart—cried out for his? What to do then? What if at night I wouldn't be… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“No, there’d been another time yet. In my sleep, when he came into my bedroom and lay on top of me, and… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“I had worshipped them all once. I had touched them the way a civet rubs itself on the objects it covets. They’d… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
Besides the fear of ending up with the totally wrong person, the first time between two persons is underscored by two things:… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“He kissed me on the mouth, but it wasn't the kiss after the Pasquino, when he'd pressed me hard against the wall… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“Was our intimacy paid for in the wrong currency? Or is intimacy the desired product no matter where you find it, how… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“Besides, thinking that I’d already lost her might ease the tension between us and allow me to regain my footing and act… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“And yet another part of me knew that if he showed up tonight and I disliked the start of whatever was in… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“Is it your body that I want when I think of lying next to it every night or do I want to… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“I wanted to hear his window open, hear his espadrilles on the balcony, and then the sound of my own window, which… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“But all of these hours were strained by fear, as if fear were a brooding specter, or a strange, lost bird trapped… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“Did I want to be like him? Did I want to be him? Or did I just want to have him? Or… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“New York may end up being no more than a scrim, a spectral film that is none other than our craving for… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“Well, since you're not going to do anything with me—can you at least read me a story? I'd settle for that. I… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“Or are "being" and "having" thoroughly inaccurate verbs in the twisted skein of desire, where having someone's body to touch and being… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“And yet, about two weeks after his arrival, all I wanted every night was for him to leave his room, not via… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“All I really wanted was one night with him, just one night—one hour, even—if only to determine whether I wanted him for… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“I know desire when I see it—and yet, this time, it slipped by completely. I was going for the devious smile that… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
Don't all writers have a hidden nerve, call it a secret chamber, something irreducibly theirs, which stirs their prose and makes it tick and… — Andre Aciman Copy Share
“I wanted him to remember the morning on Monet's berm when I'd kissed him not the first but the second time and given him… — André Aciman Copy Share
Rituals are how we step into our private field of dreams, a small Elysium all our own. Rituals are made not just for us,… — Andre Aciman Copy Share
“I desperately wanted to give him something. By contrast, taking seemed so bland, so facile, so mechanical.” — André Aciman Copy Share
Proust is interested in minutiae because life, as he sees it, is seldom ever about things but about our impression of things, not about… — Andre Aciman Copy Share
“Well, since you're not going to do anything with me—can you at least read me a story? I'd settle for that. I wanted him… — André Aciman Copy Share
“This is heaven.” And I wouldn’t hear him say another word for at least an hour. There was nothing I loved more in life… — André Aciman Copy Share
“He loved the sticky taste. What had I done? I told him and pointed to the bruised evidence sitting on my desk. “Let me… — André Aciman Copy Share
“When had they separated us, you and me, Oliver? And why did I know it, and why didn't you?” — André Aciman Copy Share
“As we were swimming back, he asked as though it were an afterthought, “Are you going to hold last night against me?” — André Aciman Copy Share
“To be with you. To be with you, Oliver. With or without my bathing suit. To be with you on my bed. In your… — André Aciman Copy Share
“I thought I could ever want another living soul, gently, softly, and, with the kindness one Jew extends to another, work his way into… — André Aciman Copy Share
“Oliver: But there's the catch: you're still twenty years younger than those gathered around you, which is why I can be twenty-four in a… — André Aciman Copy Share
I cannot write if there is a sense of plenitude. I have to hypothesize that there is a loss. — Andre Aciman Copy Share
