Hanif Kureishi Quotes

Our daily existence requires both closeness and distance, the wholeness of self, the wholeness of intimacy.

There will just always be a distance between you and the people around you. Now, [Hillary Clinton] can clearly emotionally connect with her intimates within the zone of trust. It's just the wall outside the zone of trust is so impermeable.

Intimacy requires an ability to both merge and be separate, to come together and be apart, like oscillating on a giant swing from oneness to separateness, creating a constant rhythm.

Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue, a wonderful living side by side can grow, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole against the sky.

Marriage is the only thing that affords a woman the pleasure of company and the perfect sensation of solitude at the same time.

It is sad that the air is the only thing we share. No matter how close we get to each other, there is always air between us.

If you remain always far, love will die. If you remain always near, love will die. Love can survive only in a continuous flowing relationship.

I am persuaded that we are all surrounded by an atmosphere - a separate, sensitive, distinct envelope extending some distance from our visible persons - and whenever my invisible atmosphere is invaded, it affects my whole nervous system. The proximity of any bodies but those I love best is unendurable to my body.

So many young people think the big sex act is the whole movie, but that's not the case. You need to be able to talk and laugh and cry together.

You just have to decide how close you want them. Not every person in your life needs to be your best friend: some can be friends or just friendly acquaintances.

When a man loves a woman, periodically he needs to pull away before he can get closer.

A deadness occurs in relationships when people are no longer willing to tell each other how they really feel. When people first fall in love they're more willing to do this because they're still getting to know each other and dependency has not yet set in. As soon as it does, though, people often stop sharing their true feelings out of fear of loss.

People will always want intimacy with one chosen person and you cannot have intimacy without privacy, which is why couples draw circles of privacy around themselves. They demand that family, neighbors and the law respect their union, and that is why we have marriage.

There is no formula to relationships.

But I think if it's the right person, you wouldn't have to work so hard at intimacy. I think—hope—it would just happen naturally. Otherwise, opening up to the wrong person..." I made a face. "Like putting ammo in their hands.

I actually always try to have a moment in my show where I can just lay down on stage and talk to people for a little while.

From the look of us, you'd never know we slept in the same bed last night and made out like the world was going to end if we stopped.

Without solitude, Love will not stay long by your side.

I believe love opens people up.

It's more intimate. Food can connect people in a forever sort of way.

As love is union, it knows no extremes of distance.

People say that love is the best thing in the world not power. But they are wrong. Love is the opposite of power and that's why we fear it so much.

Communication is a continual balancing act, juggling the conflicting needs for intimacy and independence

When you stop putting yourself on the line, and you don't touch your own heart, how do you expect to touch other people?

That's how most men connect - in bed. The physical connection is important because it reinforces the emotional one.