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André Aciman Quotes

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Famous André Aciman Quotes

“You made me who I am today, Nanni. Wherever I go, everyone I see and crave is ultimately measured by the glow of your light. If my life were a boat, you were the one who stepped on board, turned on its running lights, and was never heard from again. All this might as well be in my head, and in my head it stays. But I've lived and loved by your light alone. In a bus, on a busy street, in class, in a crowded concert hall, once or twice a year, whether for a man or a woman, my heart still jolts when I spot your look-alike. We love only once in our lives, my father had said, sometimes too early, sometimes too late; the other times are always a touch deliberate.”

DesireUnrequited LoveFirst LoveRemembranceBisexualAndre AcimanEnigma VariationsOne True LoveSexual AwakeningFormative
Book:Enigma Variations
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“Why have we waited so long?" I didn't know the answer. "Maybe because what we want hasn't been invented yet." "Maybe because it doesn't exist." "Which is why I dread how this ends." "Good night," she said, turning her back to me, while I wrapped my arms around her. "I know one thing, though," she said without turning around. "What?" "This doesn't end, whatever happens. Never, never ends." I tightened my arms around her. "Star love, my love, star love. It may not live but it never dies. It's the only thing I'm taking with me, and you will too, when the time comes.”

RelationshipAnother LifeAndre AcimanLove You ForeverEnigma VariationsParallel LifeNever End
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“I wanted to scream. When I'm with you, I feel I can take what others call my life and turns its face away from the wall. My entire life faces the wall except when I'm with you. I stare at my life and want to undo every mistake, every deceit, turn a new leaf, turn the table, turn the clock. I want to put a real face on my life, not the drab front I've been wearing since forever. So why can't I speak to you now?”

LifeMetaphorRedemptionSecond ChanceUnspokenFresh StartAndre AcimanEnigma VariationsDo Over
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“I'm looking at all this and I'm thinking that one day I won't be here to see it and I know I'll miss it, even if I won't have a heartbeat to miss anything. I miss it now for the-days-when, the way I miss places I've never traveled to or things I've never done." "What things have you never done?" "You're young and you're very handsome—how could you possibly understand?" He removed his arm. He lived in a future that wouldn't be his to live in and longed for a past that hadn't been his either. There was no turning back and no going forward. I felt for him.”

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“I had meant to take her to my favorite pastry shop after dinner. I'd known happiness there once, or maybe not happiness, but the vision of it. I wanted to see whether the place had changed at all, or whether I had changed, or whether, just by sitting with her I could make up for old loves I'd gotten so close to but had never been bold enough to seize. Always got so very close, and always turned my back when the time came. Manfred and I had dessert here so many times, especially after the movies, and before Manfred, Maud and I, because it was so hot on summer nights that we'd stop to drink fizzy lemonades here, night after night, happy to be together drinking nothing stronger. And Chloe, of course, on those cold afternoons on Rivington Street so many years ago. My life, my real life, had not even happened yet, and all of this was rehearsal still. Tonight, I thought, relishing Joyce's words and feeling exquisitely sorry for myself, the time has come for me to set out on my journey westward. Then I thought of Saint Augustine's words: "Sero te amavi! Late have I loved you!”

RegretMemoryLost LoveLooking BackSecond ChancesAndre AcimanAllusionEnigma VariationsIn DenialThe Road Not Taken
Book:Enigma Variations
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“Il rimpianto è lo strumento che abbiamo per sperare di tornare alla nostra vita reale dopo aver trovato la volontà - la forza cieca e il coraggio - di barattare la vita che ci è stata data con la vita che porta il nostro nome e quello soltanto. Il rimpianto è lo strumento che abbiamo per desiderare cose perdute da tempo ma in realtà mai possedute. Il rimpianto è speranza senza convinzione, dissi. Siamo combattuti fra il rimpianto, che è il prezzo da pagare per le cose non fatte, e il rimorso, che è il prezzo pagato per averle fatte.”

Enigma VariationsRimpiantoRimorsoAndré AcimanVariazioni Su Un Tema Originale
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“Neither of us was quite sure what the other meant, but, as in dreams, our words could be taken in so many ways, which was fine too, because we liked thinking they had more than one meaning, one obvious, one not so obvious, one hinted at but so muddled that neither of us knew which to grasp, because each was so laced into the others that all three ultimately meant one and the same thing.”

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“The past may or may not be a foreign country. It may morph or lie still, but its capital is always Regret, and what flushes through it is the grand canal of unfledged desires that feed into an archipelago of tiny might-have-beens that never really happened but aren't unreal for not happening and might still happen though we fear they never will. And I thought of Ole Brit holding back so much, as we all do when we look back to see that the roads we've left behind or not taken have all but vanished. Regret is how we hope to back into our real lives once we find the will, the blind drive and courage, to trade in the life we're given for the life that bears our name and ours only. Regret is how we look forward to things we've long lost yet never really had. Regret is hope without conviction, I said. We're torn between regret, which is the price to pay for things not done, and remorse, which is the cost for having done them. Between one and the other, time plays all its cozy little tricks.”

TimePhilosophicalLooking BackMight Have BeenEloquentThe PastAndre AcimanEnigma VariationsRegret Remorse
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“When I saw you after my dream, it was impossible to go through with anything I'd resolved. You were chilly again, as though you'd intercepted my dream and were so horrified that you thought it best to put distance between us. I wonder if in the universe of sleep, dreams don't fly out and rat on one another's dreamers and hold cloak-and-dagger meetings in the side alleys of our nights where they slip coded messages, which is perhaps exactly what we want them to do for us when we lack the courage to speak for ourselves. Dreams inflect our face, our smile, and on our voice lingers the timbre of desire we weren't willing to hide while dreaming. I wished you'd taken a second look at me and said, You dreamt of me last night, didn't you?”

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“Yes, the past is a foreign country," I said, "but some of us are full-fledged citizens, others occasional tourists, and some floating itinerants, itching to get out yet always aching to return." "There's a life that takes place in ordinary time," I said, "and another that bursts in but just as suddenly fizzles out. And then there's the life we may never reach but that could so easily be ours if only we knew how to find it. It doesn't necessarily happen on our planet, but is just as real as the one we live by—call it our 'star life.' Nietzsche wrote that estranged friends may become declared enemies but in some mysterious way continue to remain friends, though on a totally different sphere. He called these 'star friendships.”

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