Aleksandar Hemon Quotes - Page 4

Quotes about:

• When I found myself in the U.S., and the war was at full swing in Bosnia, I read for survival - it was a means of thought resuscitation.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  War, Mean, Swings

  "The Exchange: Aleksandar Hemon". Interview with Menachem Kaiser, www.newyorker.com. June 8, 2009.

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• We hated pretentiousness; it was a form of self-hatred.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Self, Hatred, Form

  Aleksandar Hemon (2013). “The Book of My Lives”, p.1965, Pan Macmillan

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• I wish I could avoid the people who have threatened me. My favorite threat is that I will be thrown in the River Miljacka, which is at most knee-deep, with my feet bound in cement.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Feet, Rivers, People

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• It's so internalized, the way your mind works in relation to anything - it's a process, but then it isn't. It's working all the time.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Mind, Way, Process

  "There Is No Real Life". Interview with Brad Fox, www.guernicamag.com. March 15, 2013.

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• I actually didn't listen to the Beatles song 'Nowhere Man' when I was writing my book of the same name. What I listened to a lot was 'Abbey Road.' Its disjointedness and its readiness to confuse only to delight were inspiring to me.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Song, Book, Writing

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• I cannot stand that whole game of confession, that is: Here I have sinned, now I'm confessing my sins, and describing my path of sin and then in the act of confession I beg for your forgiveness and redemption.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Games, Redemption, Path

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• I'll take any life in which I can make choices and have agency, and America is not a bad place for all that.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Agency, America, Choices

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• I end up writing something every day, since I develop six or seven things at the same time - soccer columns, this and that.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Soccer, Writing, Six

  "There Is No Real Life". Interview with Brad Fox, www.guernicamag.com. March 15, 2013.

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• Time does nothing but hand you down shabbier and older things.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Hands, Doe

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• I resist when someone calls me a novelist: it implies some kind of inherent superiority of the novel. I'm not a novelist, I'm a writer.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Novelists, Kind, Call Me

  "Life before loss". Interview with Sophie Harrison, www.theguardian.com. August 29, 2008.

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• I am a writer, which means I write stories, I write novels, and I would write poetry if I knew how to. I don't want to limit myself.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Writing, Mean, Stories

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• Sometimes I don't write at all. Someone once asked me, "What do you do when you're not writing?" And I said, "I idle."

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Writing, Sometimes, Said

  "There Is No Real Life". Interview with Brad Fox, www.guernicamag.com. March 15, 2013.

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• In Bosnian, there's no distinction in literature between fiction and nonfiction; there's no word describing that.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Fiction, Literature, Bosnians

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• I cannot live or write without music. It stimulates the normally dormant parts of my brain that come in handy when constructing fiction.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Writing, Brain, Fiction

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• God knows our despair. God wants His chosen people to live in peace. God loves life, cares less about death. We need to live. I want to live, I want my children to live. Everyone I know wants to live. You have to ask yourself what is more important to you, life is death. What is this world about - life or death?

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Children, Love Life, People

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• Wherever there's capitalism there's this inclination toward simplicity. There's also a human need to process complicated things by turning them into something else.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Simplicity, Needs, Complicated

  "There Is No Real Life". Interview with Brad Fox, www.guernicamag.com. March 15, 2013.

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• For people who are displaced, you can reconstruct the story of your life from the objects you have access to, but if you don't have the objects then there are holes in your life. This is why people in Bosnia - if anyone was running back into a burning house it was to salvage photos.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Running, People, House

  "Aleksandar Hemon: A personal history of Sarajevo". Interview with John Freeman, www.theguardian.com. February 23, 2013.

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• I've been a Nick Cave fan since the early '80s when he was part of The Birthday Party thing singing Australian self-destructive rock band and I've always followed his work and loved it.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Party, Rocks, Self

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• I long for, not a writer's retreat - I can write in any situation - but a reader's retreat.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Writing, Long, Retreat

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• We apply the language that is comforting and comfortable and familiar in order to grasp that which confuses and scares us. That is the first step toward cliché and stereotype, as they're comforting devices. They reduce the confusing world to the already familiar. We're always smoothing out the bumps of actual living to turn it into narratable life.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Order, Comforting, Confusing

  "There Is No Real Life". Interview with Brad Fox, www.guernicamag.com. March 15, 2013.

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• New York is the Hollywood of the publishing industry, complete with stars, starlets, suicidal publishers/producers, intrigues, and a lot of money.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  New York, Stars, Suicidal

  "The Exchange: Aleksandar Hemon". Interview with Menachem Kaiser, www.newyorker.com. June 8, 2009.

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• To me there's no difference between a book of stories and a novel - they're just slightly different shapes.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Book, Differences, Shapes

  "Life before loss". Interview with Sophie Harrison, www.theguardian.com. August 29, 2008.

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• I suppose I'm interested in sorrow, which is very different from depression or despair. Sorrow is continuous with the world; it allows for creativity.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Creativity, Sorrow, Despair

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• When I came to America, I was already a writer, already published in Bosnia. I was planning to go back, but I had no choice but to stay here after the civil war, so I enrolled at Northwestern in a master's program and studied American literature.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  War, America, Choices

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• I dont make notes for myself because I either lose them or they make no sense to me at all. I once found a piece of paper with the note: everything. Apparently I made a note to myself not to forget everything!

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Forget Everything, Pieces, Paper

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