Hanif Kureishi
Playwright
1954-12-05
Books by Hanif Kureishi
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The Buddha of Suburbia
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Quotes by Hanif Kureishi
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You see, I have come to believe in self-help, individual initiative, the love of what you do, and the full development of all individuals. I am constantly disappointed by how little we expect of ourselves and of the world.
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There's a lot of degradation in sex, isn't there?——When it's done right.
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I have learned that the libido, like Elvis and jealousy, never dies. I know copulators of eighty-five. Who said you need an erection, a body or an orgasm for sex?
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Sex is like art: if you know what you're doing, you don't know what you're doing.
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I began to enjoy my own generosity; I felt the pleasure of pleasing others, especially as this was accompanied by money-power. I was paying for them; they were grateful, they had to be; and they could no longer see me as a failure.
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Freud wrote that love involves the undervaluation of reality and the overvaluation of the desired object. While the correct valuation of a person is an odd, if not impossible idea, we might say Freud meant something like this: for various reasons, many of them masochistic, we become involved with others who cannot possibly give what we ask for; we can wait as long as we wish, but they do not have it, and one day, if we bear to abandon our fantasy and see clearly, we might face reality straight on. We will then look elsewhere for fulfillment, to a place where our needs can, in fact, be satisfied.
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What was marriage but sex plus property.
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However angry I was with him, however much I wanted to humiliate Terry, I suddenly saw such humanity in his eyes, and in the way he tried to smile - such innocence in the way he wanted to understand me, and such possibility of pain, along with the implicit assumption that he wouldn't be harmed - that I pulled away.
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Intelligence and effort can be no compensation for ugliness.
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But you're beautiful, and the beautiful should be given whatever they want.Hey, what about the ugly ones?The ugly ones. She poked her tongue out. It's their fault if their ugly. They're to be blamed, not pitied.
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People go their whole lives wanting to be admired for their hidden qualities.
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If you never left anything or anyone there would be no room for the new. Naturally, to move on is an infidelity -- to others, to the past, to old notions of oneself. Perhaps every day should contain at least one essential infidelity or necessary betrayal. It would be an optimistic, hopeful act, guaranteeing belief in the future -- a declaration that things can be not only different but better.
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You don't stop loving someone just because you hate them.
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The vocation of each writer is to describe the world as he or she sees it anything more than that is advertising.
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If you never left anything or anyone there would be no room for the new. Naturally, to move on is an infidelity -- to others, to the past, to old notions of oneself. Perhaps every day should contain at least one essential infidelity or necessary betrayal. It would be an optimistic, hopeful act, guaranteeing belief in the future -- a declaration that things can be not only different but better.
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There's a lot of degradation in sex, isn't there?——When it's done right.
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Sex is like art: if you know what you're doing, you don't know what you're doing.
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I began to enjoy my own generosity; I felt the pleasure of pleasing others, especially as this was accompanied by money-power. I was paying for them; they were grateful, they had to be; and they could no longer see me as a failure.
Read quote -
However angry I was with him, however much I wanted to humiliate Terry, I suddenly saw such humanity in his eyes, and in the way he tried to smile - such innocence in the way he wanted to understand me, and such possibility of pain, along with the implicit assumption that he wouldn't be harmed - that I pulled away.
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But you're beautiful, and the beautiful should be given whatever they want.Hey, what about the ugly ones?The ugly ones. She poked her tongue out. It's their fault if their ugly. They're to be blamed, not pitied.
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