Aleksander

“Like every experience that marks us for a lifetime, I found myself turned inside out, drawn and quartered. This was the sum of everything I’d been in my life—and more: who I am when I sing and stir-fry vegetables for my family and friends on Sunday afternoons; who I am when I wake up on freezing nights and want nothing more than to throw on a sweater, rush to my desk, and write about the person I know no one knows I am; who I am when I crave to be naked with another naked body, or when I crave to be alone in the world; who I am when every part of me seems miles and centuries apart and each swears it bears my name.”
― André Aciman, Call Me By Your Name

“What’s missing in my life?” I was going to say Everything, but corrected myself. “Friends—the way everyone seems to be fast friends in this place—I wish I had friends like yours, like you.” “There’ll be plenty of time for these friendships. Would friends save you from being dissoluto?” The word kept coming back like an accusation of a deep and ugly fault in my character. “I wish I had one friend I wasn’t destined to lose.” She looked at me with a pensive smile. “You’re speaking volumes, my friend, and tonight we’re doing short poems only.”
― André Aciman, Call Me By Your Name

“Look,” he interrupted. “You had a beautiful friendship. Maybe more than a friendship. And I envy you. In my place, most parents would hope the whole thing goes away, or pray that their sons land on their feet soon enough. But I am not such a parent. In your place, if there is pain, nurse it, and if there is a flame, don’t snuff it out, don’t be brutal with it. Withdrawal can be a terrible thing when it keeps us awake at night, and watching others forget us sooner than we’d want to be forgotten is no better. We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster than we should that we go bankrupt by the age of thirty and have less to offer each time we start with someone new. But to feel nothing so as not to feel anything—what a waste!”
― André Aciman, Call Me By Your Name

“I don’t know, it’s stupid being twenty,” she said. “I’m just not ready. It feels weird. Like somebody’s pushing me from behind.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood