Joyce Mau

“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.”
― André Aciman, Enigma Variations

“If only I could dream of you. Sometimes I do. But not often enough. Dreams are like practice runs and mini-rehearsals; they tell us what we'll do, when to ask, how we'll touch when the time comes, if the time comes.”
― André Aciman, Enigma Variations

“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.”
― André Aciman, Enigma Variations

“That's the power of literature, you know, it can act like little love letters between two people who can only explain their feelings by pointing at other people's.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People