Room on the Sea Quotes

“Ironically, it is familiarity that estranges people. We repeat the same things 'til we run out of new ways to say them. Then we grow tired of saying them and of hearing them said, and our guarded silence turning into a way of life 'til we find ourselves drifting like two rudderless steamboats with their engines off.
We misstake familiarty for intimacy. It is not intimacy. All it is, is habit. And habit is a shorthand for silence.”
― André Aciman, Room on the Sea

“I'd forgotten what being with someone was like, and enjoying that someone. I've felt young and hopeful again - only to realize that I'd stopped being young and hopeful for so long....That's the tiny joke time plays on us: it robs the memory of who we were and what we were able to feel once.”
― André Aciman, Room on the Sea

“For a conversation to unroll between two persons you need a base of sympathy. People with completely different ideas and incompatible interests, if they share a degree of sympathy and warmth, can talk for hours. People with identical interests, without sympathy, live in silence.”
― André Aciman, Room on the Sea

“Ironically, it is familiarity that estranges people. We repeat the same things till we run out of new ways to say them, then we grow tired of saying them and of hearing them said, and our guarded silence turns into a way of life until we find ourselves drifting like two rudderless steamboats with their engines off. We mistake familiarity for intimacy. It is not intimacy. All is is is habit - and habit is a shorthand for silence.”
― André Aciman, Room on the Sea

“Sometimes a random moment occurs, and then you realize that it came with a small halo.”
― André Aciman, Room on the Sea

“For a conversation to unroll between two persons you need a base of sympathy. People with completely different ideas and incompatible interests, if they share a degree of sympathy and warmth between them, can talk for hours. People with identical interests, without sympathy, live in silence.”
― André Aciman, Room on the Sea

“He'd never been to see a shrink.
'Why?' She asked.
'Either because I never quarreled with who I was or because I was afraid what I'd uncover and end up quarreling with everything I was.”
― André Aciman, Room on the Sea

“Have you ever had the sense that maybe all lives are nothing more than the chronicle of countless rendez-vous manqués, of stinging might-have- beens that continue to haunt us and, barring a very few times, go forever unresolved?”
― André Aciman, Room on the Sea

“I don't think we ever do recover. We're just layered with traumas and heartbreaks, some very deep, others on the sur-face, and before you know it, the ones on the surface sink to the very bottom and seem to go away, while those all the way below rise up again, as in a lava lamp.”
― André Aciman, Room on the Sea

“she found a lone walnut in the bowl of peanuts and began trying to shell it with her fingernails, then with her teeth. ‘I think it’s a very good idea.’ She smiled as she finally released the pistachio. ‘It’s”
― André Aciman, Room on the Sea