Jennifer Bohnert

“I even drew pleasure in thinking that my passion was inherited, that it was passed on, and therefore fated. Fate always leaves a mark, and those of us who are truly lucky know the signs and how to read them. He would have taught me everything, and most likely given me everything. Instead, years after, I sought out the wrong people, learned from the wrong teachers, took from those who had less to give and almost nothing I wanted.”
― André Aciman, Enigma Variations

“This is the cruel thing about the dead. They come back in ways that always catch us off guard, don’t they, Signor Giovanni?” Mother said.

“Yes,” he agreed. “Sometimes, just wanting to tell them something that would have mattered to them, or to ask about people and places only they would have known about, reminds us that they’ll never hear us, won’t answer, don’t care. But perhaps it’s much worse for them: maybe they are the ones calling out to us and it is we who can’t listen and don’t seem to care.”
― André Aciman, Enigma Variations

“Sero te amavi! Late have I loved you!”
― André Aciman, Enigma Variations

“And then, as if something were being torn out of my lungs and needed to be said, I finally found a moment when he was alone to tell him. “I’ve never had friends, you’ve been my only friend,” I said, speaking these words without even realizing I had said them. What I’d meant to say was, I was your friend, I wish you’d stayed mine.”
― André Aciman, Enigma Variations