Esha

“And this is what I’ve always suspected about Tuscany. It is about many beautiful things—about small towns, magnificent vistas, and fabulous cuisine, art, culture, history—but it is ultimately about the love of books. It is a reader’s paradise. People come here because of books. Tuscany may well be for people who love life in the present—simple, elaborate, whimsical, complicated life in the present—but it is also for people who love the present when it bears the shadow of the past, who love the world provided it’s at a slight angle. Bookish people.”
― André Aciman, Alibis: Essays on Elsewhere

“I count the days because I love them too much. I count the days, already knowing that one day I will remember how tactless it was of me to have counted the days when I could so easily have enjoyed them. I count the days to pretend that losing all this doesn’t faze me.”
― André Aciman, Alibis: Essays on Elsewhere

“It’s the ruse of the possum: if you do nothing, and danger sees you doing nothing, danger will go away. Ultimately, what it really says is this: if I kill myself a tiny bit each day before you do, won’t this obviate your need for killing me? If I stop my watch, won’t history stop its own? Like a submarine that wants to appear hit, you leave a slick behind you.”
― André Aciman, Alibis: Essays on Elsewhere

“It is only when it’s too late that one comes to understand how close one came to bliss … or how needless our sorrows were when they drove us to despair.”
― André Aciman, Alibis: Essays on Elsewhere