Love and Obstacles Quotes

“Time does nothing but hand you down shabbier and older things.”
― Aleksandar Hemon, Love and Obstacles

“We knew - but didn't want to know - what was going to happen, the sky descending upon our heads like the shadow of a falling piano in a cartoon.”
― Aleksandar Hemon, Love and Obstacles

“This took place just before the war, in the relatively rosz times, when we were euphoric with the imminence of disaster – we drank and laughed and experimented with poetic forms into the late hours. We tried to keep the war away from the Table, but now and the na budding Serbian patriot would start ranting about the suppression of his people’s culture, whereupon Dedo, with his newly acquired elder status, would indeed suppress him with a sequence of carefully arranged insults and curses. Inevitably, the nationalist would declare Dedo an Islamofascist and storm off, never to return, while we, the fools, laughed uproariously. We knew – but we didn’t want to know – what was going to happen, the sky descending upon our heads like the shadow of a falling piano in a cartoon.”
― Aleksandar Hemon, Love and Obstacles

“One builds one's life in consistency; one invests it with the belief, however unsupported by reality, that one has always been what one is now, that even in one's distant past one could recognize the seed from which this doomed flower has bloomed.”
― Aleksandar Hemon, Love and Obstacles

“Shiny teeth were footnote to her smile.”
― Aleksandar Hemon, Love and Obstacles

“You can experience and understand history only when you're inside it, but when you're inside it you don't have time or gumption for understanding. All you want is just to stay alive, for which understanding is not necessary. You have no access to history’s complex, catastrophic logic, which is indelibly overwhelming and incomprehensible, particularly as you're trying to survive.”
― Aleksandar Hemon, Love and Obstacles

“M-am îngrozit gândindu-mă cum trebuie să i se fi părut toate astea - această masă, acest apartament, această familie, ce înțelegea din existența noastră mică, înghesuită, din felurile noastre de mâncare simple, făcute pentru oameni veșnic înfometați, din pierderea care licărea în tot ceea ce făceam sau nu făceam.”
― Aleksandar Hemon, Love and Obstacles

“La 16 ani investeam o gramadă de energie să-mi afișez plictiseala: îmi dădeam ochii peste cap, răspundeam lapidar la întrebările părinților, rămâneam impasibil la poveștile de viață pe care le împărtășeau. Îmi construisem o armura de fier care îmi permitea să evadez, să citesc și să mă întorc în propria-mi celulă fără ca nimeni să observe.”
― Aleksandar Hemon, Love and Obstacles

“Citeam toată noaptea, toată ziua, în loc să-mi fac temele; la școală citeam pe sub bancă[...]. Mă simțeam confortabil și sigur doar in spațiul imaginar al literarurii: fără un tată absent, fără o mama deprimată, fără bătăușii care mă puneau să ling paginile cărții până când limba mi se înnegrea de la cerneală.”
― Aleksandar Hemon, Love and Obstacles