*

This is typical of me – to be so close to something, and then flee.

—Intimacy.
Hanif Kureishi.

*

‘Yes, it makes me feel unique for loving the same person continuously for a number of years and not covertly planning to escape. But I do love it here. Every day something is built upon. There is increase. Without it I would be just a man walking down the street with nowhere to go’.
‘At home, for me, there is no movement’.
‘With a real love there is little movement. You are going round and round, but further and further. Don’t you believe in anything? Or is virtue only a last resort for you?’
What could I say here? Young people are full of tedious belief. Why not me? Not many beliefs come spontaneously to mind. We have reached such a state that after two thousand years of Christian civilization, if I meet anyone religious – and, thankfully, I do only rarely these days – I consider  them to be mentally defective and probably in need of therapy.
I might say: I believe in individualism, in sensualism, and in creative idleness. I like the human imagination: its delicacy, its brutal aggressive energy, its profundity, its power to transform the material world into art. I like what men and women make. I prefer this to everything else on earth, apart from love and women’s bodies, which are at the centre of everything worth living for.

—Intimacy.
Hanif Kureishi.

*

‘Aren’t I allowed to change my mind? If people are rushing away from one another in droves, it is because they are running towards other people.’
‘All of us yearn for more. We are never satisfied. Wisdom is to know the value of what we have. Every day, if there is some little good fortune, and our children smile at us or for once do what we say, we should consider ourselves lucky.’

—Intimacy.
Hanif Kureishi.

*

If only I could sit here contentedly in the middle of my life as children seem to in theirs, without constantly worrying about the state of things, tomorrow, next week, next year. But since the age of fourteen, when I conspired against my parents, not fleeing as I intended to, but biding my time and preparing, knowing that one day I would be ready, I have required the future as a goal. I’ve needed something to happen every day that showed a kind of progress or accumulation. I can’t bear it when thing go slack, when there isn’t sufficient intensity. But I would welcome a quiet period. I am hoping for that, in the long run.

—Intimacy.
Hanif Kureishi.

*

I know love is dark work; you have to get your hands dirty. If you hold back, nothing interesting happens. At the same time, you have to find the right distance between people. Too close, and they overwhelm you; too far and they abandon you. How to hold them in the right relation?

—Intimacy.
Hanif Kureishi.

*

How foolish they were to let themselves feel so much!

—Intimacy.
Hanif Kureishi.

*

Why then don’t I shake her awake and force her to look at me? Have I tried hard enough? Why should I imagine that I am easy to get along with? Perhaps, all this time, she has been making a heroic effort to get along with a morose, over-sensitive, self-absorbed fool.

—Intimacy.
Hanif Kureishi.

*

Perhaps it is a fine idea to have the women close but not too close. Presumably, over there they supress their desired, but I am of a generation that believes in the necessity of satisfying oneself.
Maybe; but I have lost my relish for living. I am apathetic and most of the time want nothing, except to understand why there hasn’t been more happiness there. Is it like this for everyone? Is this all you get? Is this the most there could be?
In the morning I will be gone.
It is my yearning for more life that has done this, and we are yearning creatures, a bag of insistent wants.

—Intimacy.
Hanif Kureishi.

*

His therapist has told him to express himself. They offer such advice without considering the public. Who says self-expression improves mental health? Look at the artists: art therapy every day. You’d think they’d be the sanest people around, Van Gogh, Rothko and all.

—Intimacy.
Hanif Kureishi.

*

Scarcity was part of her life, including love. Sometimes too much of everything is as bad as too little.

—Intimacy.
Hanif Kureishi.

*

We must treat other people as if they were real. But are they?

—Intimacy.
Hanif Kureishi.

*

How little directness there is, when you look around! We have to make thing distinct by indirection. What a redundant and fearful dance it all is, as if our feelings are weapons that could kill, and words are their bullets.

—Intimacy.
Hanif Kureishi.

*

Art is easy for those who can do it, and impossible for those who can’t.

—Intimacy.
Hanif Kureishi.

*

But to be able to bear one’s own mind, to wait while the inner storm of intolerable thoughts blows itself out, leaving one to contemplate the debris with some understanding – that is an enviable state of mind

—Intimacy.
Hanif Kureishi.

*

I have integrity too, I am sure of it. It is difficult to explain. I expect him to know my particular probity without having to go into it. I suppose I want to be loyal to something else now. Or someone else. Yes; myself. When did it start going wrong with Susan? When I opened my eyes; when I decided I wanted to see.

—Intimacy.
Hanif Kureishi.

*

The world is made from our imagination; our eyes enliven it, as our hands give it shape. Wanting makes it thrive; meaning is what you put in, not what you extract. You can only see what you are inclined to see, and no more. We have to make the new.

—Intimacy.

Hanif Kureishi.

*

You might say that without a general culture nothing can be understood. But the general culture isn’t getting me anywhere tonight. I can’t keep my loneliness and longing away.
I must do something. But what?
And, more importantly, why?

—Intimacy.
Hanif Kureishi.

*

People don’t want you to have too much pleasure; they think it’s bad for you. You might start wanting it all the time. How unsettling is desire! That devil never sleeps or keeps still. Desire is naughty and doesn’t conform to our ideals, which is why we have such a need of them. Desire mocks al human endeavour and makes it worthwhile. Desire is the original anarchist and undercover agent – no wonder people want it arrested and kept in a safe place. And just when we think we’ve got desire under control it lets us down or fills us with hope. Desire makes me laugh because it makes fools of us all. Still, rather a fool than a fascist. 

—Intimacy.
Hanif Kureishi.

*

The world is made from our imagination; our eyes enliven it, as put hands give it shape. Wanting makes it thrive; meaning is what you put in it, not what you extract. You can only see what you are inclined to see, and no more. We have to make the new. 

—Intimacy.
Hanif Kureishi.

*

Fear is something I recognize. My childhood still tasted of fear; of hours, days and months of fear. Fear of parents, aunts and uncles, of vicars, police and teachers, and of being kicked, abused and insulted by other children. The fear of getting into trouble, of being discovered, and the fear of being castigated, smacked, ignored, locked in, locked out, as well as the numerous other punishments that surrounded everything you attempted. There is, too, the fear of what you wanted, hated and desired; the fear of your own anger, the fear of retaliation and of annihilation. There is habit, convention and morality, as well as the fear of who you might become. It isn’t surprising that you become accustomed to doing what you are told while making a safe place inside yourself, and living a secret life. Perhaps that is why stories of spies and double lives are so compelling. It is, surely, a miracle that anyone ever does anything original.

—Intimacy.

Hanif Kureishi.