“That day belongs to a different time warp. We should learn to leave sleeping dogs—” — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“I wish I knew how to calibrate my kiss the way he did but passion allows us to hide more.” — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“In a few days he'd be gone. If only he'd be back exactly a year from now.” — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“I want Billowy too. And the espadrilles. And the sunglasses. And you.” — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“Find Cupid everywhere in Rome because we'd clipped one of his wings and he was forced to fly in circles.” — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“ I don't care to remember —like I know myself —hinted at a realm of human experience only others had access to,… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“He is right, there is no denying it,' said my father under his breath, as though mimicking the part of a cowered… — 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
“How I admired people who talked about their vices as though they were distant relatives they'd learn to put up with because… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“And yet, out of the blue, a tender moment would erupt so suddenly between us that the words I longed to tell… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“What had been in my head for so long would now be out in the real world, no longer afloat in my… — 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
“But I couldn't even remember last night's anxieties. They were completely overshadowed by what followed them and seemed to belong to a… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“There is a spot on via Santa Maria dell' Anima that I revisit every time I'm in Rome. I'll stare at it… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“Oliver was Oliver,' I said, as if that summed things up. 'Parce que c'était lui, parce que c'était moi,' my father added,… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“Never in my life had I been so happy. Nothing could go wrong, everything was happening my way, all the doors were… — 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
“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
“Like the subconscious, like love, like memory, like time itself, like every single one of us, the church is built on the… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“But that moment of what seemed like bliss now when we'd walked our bikes on the piazzetta both before and after our… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“Or had I come with a far more menial purpose? To find him living alone, waiting for me, craving to be taken… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“Before long, my mother's friend, who, at the last minute, decided to stay for dinner, was asked to sit where I'd sat… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“Or, when I wasn't practicing the guitar and he wasn't listening to his headphones, still with his straw hat flat on his… — 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
“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
“But this thing that almost never was still beckons, I wanted to tell him. They can never undo it, never unwrite it,… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“Maybe it was the alcohol, maybe it was the truth, maybe I didn't want things to turn abstract, but I felt I… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“As I tried to doze, the incident on the piazzetta, lost somewhere amid the Piave war memorial and our ride up the… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“Two words from him, and I had seen my pouting apathy change into I’ll play anything for you till you ask me… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“I look back on those days and regret none of it, not the risks, not the shame, not the total lack of… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“I wished I were like those soldiers in films who run out of bullets and toss away their guns as though they… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“I looked at him: I want one more kiss. I should, could, have seized him. By the next morning, things became officially… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“I wish I could be with you all,' I responded, getting all worked up myself over someone I had almost entirely stopped… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“I could spend the rest of my life like this: with him, at night, in Rome, my eyes totally shut, one leg… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“You never did forgive me, did you?' 'Forgive? There was nothing to forgive. If anything, I'm grateful for everything. I remember good… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“For weeks I had mistaken his stare for barefaced hostility. I was wide of the mark. It was simply a shy man's… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“I hadn’t a hope left. And maybe I stared back because there wasn’t a thing to lose now. I stared back with… — 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
“Seeing him and thinking he'd join us for dinner tonight only to hear his peremptory Esco taught me there are certain wishes… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
