Aleksander

“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

“Well, to me, that’s what love is. Not that anyone can understand me, though.” Midori gave her head a little shake against my shoulder. “For a certain kind of person, love begins from something tiny or silly. From something like that or it doesn’t begin at all.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“Waiting for your answer is one of the most painful things I have ever been through. At least let me know whether or not I hurt you.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood