185 Quotes by Hanif Kureishi

I don’t like being left for long struggling with my dangerous self.

The vocation of each writer is to describe the world as he or she sees it; anything more than that is advertising.

You don't stop loving someone just because you hate them.

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.

Whoever thought that pleasure makes you happy?

Mamoon went on, “The news I bring is to say that, man being the only animal who hates himself, the likely fate of the world is total self-destruction.” He raised his glass. “All the best then, my friends. Here’s to a happy apocalypse.”“Happy apocalypse,” murmured the other guests, obediently.

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?

Sex is like art: if you know what you’re doing, you don’t know what you’re doing.

Desire is naughty and doesn't conform to our ideals, which is why we have such a need of them. Desire mocks all human endeavour and makes it worthwhile. Desire is the original anarchist and undercover agent – no wonder people want it arrested and kept in a safe place. And just when we think we've got desire under control it lets us down or fills us with hope. Desire makes me laugh because it makes fools of us all.