He was, after all, just a man. And not merely a narrative.

— Hanif Kureishi

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.

— Hanif Kureishi

How many artists have created while drunk, high on laudanum, opium, chloral or amphetamines? What have antidepressants ever done for culture?

— Hanif Kureishi

I admired him more than anyone but I didn't wish him well. It was that I preferred him to me and wanted to be him. I coveted his talents, face, style. I wanted to wake up with them all transferred to me.

— Hanif Kureishi

I am dust and my story ends here.

— Hanif Kureishi

I began to enjoy my own generosity; I felt the pleasure of pleasing others, especially as this was accompanied by money-power. I was paying for them; they were grateful, they had to be; and they could no longer see me as a failure.

— Hanif Kureishi

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!

— Hanif Kureishi

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.

— Hanif Kureishi

I don’t like being left for long struggling with my dangerous self.

— Hanif Kureishi

If there’s no sacrifice, there’s no love.

— Hanif Kureishi