Please remove your watch,' he said. 'In my domain time isn't a factor. — Hanif Kureishi Domain Copy Share Image
“It was easy to see that he was clever and well read, but he was also boring.” — Hanif Kureishi Books Copy Share Image
“How utterly our past suffuses us. We live in all our days at once.” — Hanif Kureishi Past Copy Share Image
“Intelligence and effort can be no compensation for ugliness.” — Hanif Kureishi Intelligence Copy Share Image
I am determined to live without illusions. I want to look at reality straight. Without hiding. — Hanif Kureishi Determined Copy Share Image
“The truth is,everything we really desire is either forbidden,immoral or unhealthy, and if you're lucky, all three at once.” — Hanif Kureishi Immoral Copy Share Image
“Desire, like the dead or an unpleasant meal, would keep returning--it was ultimately indigestible.” — Hanif Kureishi Desire Copy Share Image
Children, who have yet to learn our ways, are notoriously promiscuous in their affection. They’ll sit on anyone’s knee. — Hanif Kureishi Affection Copy Share Image
Our lives can only be lived forward and understood backwards. Living a life and understanding it occupy different dimensions. — Hanif Kureishi Backwards Copy Share Image
“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 Burning Copy Share Image
My father was a civil servant, so having a regular job, being respectable is a big deal for me. Respectable in the… — Hanif Kureishi Big deal Copy Share Image
At the deepest level people are madder than they want to believe. You will find that they fear being eaten, and are… — Hanif Kureishi Believe Copy Share Image
Falling in love was simple; one had only to yield. Digesting another person, however, and sustaining love, was bloody work, and not… — Hanif Kureishi Bloody Copy Share Image
“Suddenly I shouted into the night air. 'Yes, yes, yes, it is true!" And now the world had some tension in it;… — Hanif Kureishi Suddenly Copy Share Image
“One of his black girlfriends did once persuade him to go on an anti-racist demonstration; and when the National Front yelled, "Get… — Hanif Kureishi Anti racist Copy Share Image
“People who were only ever half right about things drove me mad. I hated the flood of opinion, the certainty, the easy… — Hanif Kureishi Ignorance Copy Share Image
“For Mum, life was fundamentally hell. You went blind, you got raped, people forgot your birthday, Nixon got elected, your husband fled… — Hanif Kureishi Blind Copy Share Image
“You see, I have come to believe in self-help, individual initiative, the love of what you do, and the full development of… — Hanif Kureishi Change Copy Share Image
“And so I sat in the centre of this old city that I loved, which itself sat at the bottom of a… — Hanif Kureishi Happy Miserable Copy Share Image
“I liked Terry more than anyone I'd met for a long time, and we talked everyday. But he did believe the working… — Hanif Kureishi Class struggle Copy Share Image
“As a Newbody, however, I began to like the pornographic circus of rough sex; the stuff that resembled some of the modern… — Hanif Kureishi Modern dance Copy Share Image
I've never had any desire to be good. I don't like goodness particularly. — Hanif Kureishi Be good Copy Share Image
“I’m using Mao as my inspiration. “Cast away illusions. Prepare for struggle.” I’m back in business, baby. You don’t know you’re stuck… — Hanif Kureishi Business Copy Share Image
...I love 'yes.' It's practically the most interesting word of all, don't you think?" Like a hinge opening a door outward. Yes,… — Hanif Kureishi Doors Copy Share Image
“I could have ripped at those pages with my fingernails in order to get all of the material inside me.” — Hanif Kureishi Fingernails Copy Share Image
These days everyone was insisting on their identity, coming out as a man, woman, gay, black, Jew - brandishing whichever features they… — Hanif Kureishi Black Copy Share Image
If you get depressed, you can be stuck for months; if you have an analyst, you at least have a chance of… — Hanif Kureishi Analyst Copy Share Image
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 Beating yourself up Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
The vocation of each writer is to describe the world as he or she sees it; anything more than that is advertising. — Hanif Kureishi Advertising Copy Share Image
Like you, she will have been with other people, but I've got a feeling there's something between you. — Hanif Kureishi Feeling Copy Share Image
At the same time, you have to find the right distance between people. Too close, and they overwhelm you, too far and… — Hanif Kureishi Abandon Copy Share Image
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… — Hanif Kureishi Baby Copy Share Image
“I can only think how good life on earth can be, at times. What grief two people can give to one another!… — Hanif Kureishi Death Copy Share Image
“Transgression affirms the very rules it intends to flout. Nothing supports the norm like deviation.” — Hanif Kureishi Deviation Copy Share Image
“Everything has become very conventional. You're either in or you're out. I'm with the out- with the weird, the impossible, the victimised… — Hanif Kureishi Conventional Copy Share Image
