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b588e09
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Mamoon went on, "The news I bring is to say that, man being the only animal who hates himself, the likely fate of the world is total self-destruction." He raised his glass. "All the best then, my friends. Here's to a happy apocalypse." "Happy apocalypse," murmured the other guests, obediently."
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happy
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Hanif Kureishi |
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7cdd4a6
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What was marriage but sex plus property.
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property
sex
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Hanif Kureishi |
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b1ea34f
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If there's no sacrifice, there's no love.
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sacrifice
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Hanif Kureishi |
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722ae61
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But why do people who are good at families have to be smug and assume it is the only way to live, as if everybody else is inadequate? Why can't they be blamed for being bad at promiscuity?
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Hanif Kureishi |
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f234eea
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He had some impression that happiness was beyond him and everything was coming down, and that life could not be grasped but only lived.
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Hanif Kureishi |
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25ddd6d
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That's where the public like their artists--exposed, trousers down, arse up, doing a long stretch among serial killers, and shitting in front of strangers. That'll teach 'em to think their talent makes them better than mediocre no-brain tax-paying wage slaves like us.
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Hanif Kureishi |
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b97a0c7
|
Women are attracted to artists, of course, as they are to doctors and prisoners on death row. The powerful and the vulnerable. If you want to continue to get laid, particularly as you get older, that's where to head, boy.
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Hanif Kureishi |
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b49db25
|
In chili's hand were his car keys, Ray-bans and Marlboros, without which he wouldn't leave his bathroom. Chili drank only black coffee and neat Jack Daniel's; his suits were Boss, his underwear Calvin Klein, his actor Pacino. His barber shook his hand, his accountant took him to dinner, his drug dealer would come to him at all hours and accept his checks.
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Hanif Kureishi |
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c7e105d
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A man who hasn't left behind him a string of broken women has hardly been alive.
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Hanif Kureishi |
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a90aab9
|
It is only the insane who achieve anything significant.
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Hanif Kureishi |
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a257308
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Srt mqtn`an 'n lftn@ lshkhSy@ l lrSn@ wl lnzh@ wl Ht~ llyq@ hy 'wl~ lmwhb ljtm`y@, Ht~ 'nny Srt `jb blshkhS lGlZ 'w lrdhl shrT 'n ykwnw mthyryn llhtmm .
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Hanif Kureishi |
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cf907c8
|
It was easy to see that he was clever and well read, but he was also boring.
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Hanif Kureishi |
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f98c275
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nWk l ttwqf `n HbW shkhS fqT l'nWk tkrhh.
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Hanif Kureishi |
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91f416f
|
The world's full of people with unusual beliefs, Julia. Scientologists, Rastafarians, Catholics, Moonies, Mormons, Baptists, Tories, dentists, captains of industry--every madness has its cheerleader. The asylums and parliament are crammed full of delusionists, and only a madman would want to eliminate them.
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Hanif Kureishi |
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e8c4ef5
|
I could have ripped at those pages with my fingernails in order to get all of the material inside me.
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Hanif Kureishi |
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050e098
|
Apparently the town, a triumph of post-war socialist planning was a sewer, full of tattooed beasts and violent zombies, with vomit and blood frothing in the gutters. I couldn't wait to see it.
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Hanif Kureishi |
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6471820
|
At detumescence, after all, there is conversation, that is where love begins.
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Hanif Kureishi |
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859b597
|
My father had the right idea. Begin from an assumption of insanity and then laugh, where possible.
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Hanif Kureishi |
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5a38896
|
Without parents who had time for her, at an early age she had made herself self-sufficient.
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Hanif Kureishi |
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3a6cc16
|
Clothes and accessories were a person's creativity; how someone looked was always a free decision, like a brushstroke on a painting.
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Hanif Kureishi |
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b90ac30
|
You're smart enough to recognize that the subjects of migraines and cats never fail with the women. Lead the old girl toward the mint tea.
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Hanif Kureishi |
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bedc44f
|
The news I bring is to say that, man being the only animal who hates himself, the likely fate of the world is total self-destruction.
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Hanif Kureishi |
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bbba74e
|
And if anyone manages to get their sexuality and their love lined up together, they are indeed lucky. It is as rare as a fine spring day in the country.
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Hanif Kureishi |
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3da3928
|
Marriage domesticates sex but frees love. It is unsuitable as a solution to human need, but as with capitalism, the alternatives are much worse.
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Hanif Kureishi |
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e41f0d2
|
you can't just let people down, dammit.
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Hanif Kureishi |
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c3e8742
|
Artists were allowed, indeed encouraged, to lead more libidinous lives on behalf of others who had, of necessity, to leave their jouissance at the door while they worked.
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Hanif Kureishi |
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6997b20
|
The madness of writing was the antidote to true madness.
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Hanif Kureishi |
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7027e0e
|
the world is simple: it's just a matter of cafes where they like you, and cafes where they don't.
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Hanif Kureishi |
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effdc41
|
Women only wear beautiful clothes so that men will want to remove them.
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clothes
women
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Hanif Kureishi |
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3f90cba
|
England's a nice place if you're rich, but otherwise it's a fucking swamp of prejudice, class confusion, the whole thing.
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Hanif Kureishi |
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706b559
|
For him in India the British were ridiculous, stiff, unconfident, rule-bound. And he'd made me feel that we couldn't allow ourselves the shame of failure in front of these people. You couldn't let the ex-colonialists see you on your knees, for that was where they expected you to be. They were exhausted now; their Empire was gone; their day was done and it was our turn.
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Hanif Kureishi |
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78121c7
|
He was, after all, just a man. And not merely a narrative.
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narative
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Hanif Kureishi |
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f7d0957
|
Plato, along with the latest pope, recognised how dangerous it is to have an artist around making mischief, stirring things up with the spoon of truth and intoxicant of fantasy and magic. And so, for crossing the line, and for stealing God's fire, artists were banned, imprisoned, condemned, silenced, killed - they always would be, these sometimes Christs of the page.
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Hanif Kureishi |
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93b9a12
|
behind him a string of broken women has hardly been alive.
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Hanif Kureishi |
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5ca9e2f
|
For those of you curious about the menu, I am drinking tear soup.
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Hanif Kureishi |
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59882d7
|
Harry had loved most of the arts long enough to know that artists had to be excused failings which would condemn the general population. The artist was the proxy, the brave one, the one who spoke, was thanked, and who paid the price. Artists were allowed, indeed encouraged, to lead more libidinous lives on behalf of others who had, of necessity, to leave their jouissance, at the door while they worked.
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Hanif Kureishi |
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39f7ff7
|
Beauty is the promise of happiness . . .
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Hanif Kureishi |
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14d9b46
|
Does sex make life worth living? Didn't you say, the other day, 'Our lives are only as good as our orgasms'?
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Hanif Kureishi |
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c11173e
|
l`lh mn lkhT' 'n `dm m`rf@ lmr bl'shy lyrwtyky@ wlrGb@ ldnywy@ ts`d fy qtl lrGb@. dh ymkn llrGb@ 'n tjd 'SGr fjw@ tsll mnh
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Hanif Kureishi |
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661a82a
|
I love the razor's edge. I want to be cut open. My terror is of a bourgeois, ordinary life. I can't bear the everyday constraint. I believe that ordinariness would put out my spark, such as it is.
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Hanif Kureishi |
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ce4df02
|
All sex, and indeed all pleasure, must include a poisonous drop of perversion, of devilish transgression--of evil, even--for it to be worth getting into bed for.
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Hanif Kureishi |
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b318d20
|
Most people don't know how to maximize their pleasure, Harry, they sexualize their pain.
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Hanif Kureishi |
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11f2750
|
A few words of criticism and I can bear a grudge for three days at a time, convinced she is plotting against me. None of this has diminished despite years of self-analysis, therapy and "writing as healing", as some of my students used to call the attempt to make at. Nothing has cured me of myself, of the self I cling to. If you asked me, I would probably say that my problems are myself; my life is my dilemmas. I'd better enjoy them, then."
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Hanif Kureishi |
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d8cfd22
|
After a bit you realize there's only one invaluable commodity. Not gold or love, but time.
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Hanif Kureishi |