{"author":"Hanif Kureishi","author_id":"Hanif+Kureishi","total_quotes":49,"quotes":[{"text":"You see, I have come to believe in self-help, individual initiative, the love of what you do, and the full development of all individuals. I am constantly disappointed by how little we expect of ourselves and of the world.","author":"Hanif Kureishi","tags":["change","initiative","perseverance","society"],"id":20781,"author_id":"Hanif+Kureishi"},{"text":"When Victor Hugo was buried, you couldn’t find a whore in all of Paris. They were too busy paying their respects. That was a man – and he still has a show on in the West End.","author":"Hanif Kureishi","tags":["paris","victor-hugo","west-end","whore"],"id":22846,"author_id":"Hanif+Kureishi"},{"text":"I didn't want to be educated. It wasn't the right time of my life for concentration, it really wasn't. The spirit of the age among the people I knew manifested itself as general drift and idleness. We didn't want money. What for? We could get by, living off parents, friends or the State And if we were going to be bored, and we were usually bored, rarely being self-motivated, we could at least be bored on our own terms, lying smashed on mattresses in ruined houses rather than working in the machine. I didn't want to work in a place where I couldn't wear my fur coat.","author":"Hanif Kureishi","tags":["education","work","youth"],"id":36761,"author_id":"Hanif+Kureishi"},{"text":"But you're beautiful, and the beautiful should be given whatever they want.'Hey, what about the ugly ones?'The ugly ones.' She poked her tongue out. 'It's their fault if their ugly. They're to be blamed, not pitied.","author":"Hanif Kureishi","tags":["beauty"],"id":38360,"author_id":"Hanif+Kureishi"},{"text":"He was, after all, just a man. And not merely a narrative.","author":"Hanif Kureishi","tags":["man","narative"],"id":51900,"author_id":"Hanif+Kureishi"},{"text":"People go their whole lives wanting to be admired for their hidden qualities.","author":"Hanif Kureishi","tags":["hidden","people","qualities"],"id":58660,"author_id":"Hanif+Kureishi"},{"text":"If you never left anything or anyone there would be no room for the new. Naturally, to move on is an infidelity -- to others, to the past, to old notions of oneself. Perhaps every day should contain at least one essential infidelity or necessary betrayal. It would be an optimistic, hopeful act, guaranteeing belief in the future -- a declaration that things can be not only different but better.","author":"Hanif Kureishi","tags":["relationships"],"id":78589,"author_id":"Hanif+Kureishi"},{"text":"The writer, indeed every real artist, was the devil, rivalling God in creativity, trying even to surpass him. God was surely man’s most fatal creation, the devil’s kitsch bitch. It was God, with his insistence on being worshipped and admired, who made the argument of art necessary, keeping the fire of dissent alive in men and women. This dissident was the artist, who spanned with his imagination reason and unreason, the under and the over, the dream and the world, men and women.","author":"Hanif Kureishi","tags":["writer"],"id":95032,"author_id":"Hanif+Kureishi"},{"text":"However angry I was with him, however much I wanted to humiliate Terry, I suddenly saw such humanity in his eyes, and in the way he tried to smile - such innocence in the way he wanted to understand me, and such possibility of pain, along with the implicit assumption that he wouldn't be harmed - that I pulled away.","author":"Hanif Kureishi","tags":["compassion","humanity","pity"],"id":124334,"author_id":"Hanif+Kureishi"},{"text":"I can only think how good life on earth can be, at times. What grief two people can give to one another! And what pleasure!","author":"Hanif Kureishi","tags":["hanif-kureishi","intimacy","relationships"],"id":144937,"author_id":"Hanif+Kureishi"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":49,"pages":5,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}