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 HemonRead
I have two homes, like someone who leaves their hometown and/or parents and then establishes a life elsewhere. They might say that they're going home when they return to see old friends or parents, but then they go home as well when they go to where they live now. Sarajevo is home, Chicago is home.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects the concept of having multiple homes and the emotional ties associated with them.
In this quote, Aleksandar Hemon expresses the idea that a person can feel at home in more than one place, particularly when they have strong connections to both their origins and their current residence. It speaks to the complexity of belonging and how our experiences and relationships shape our understanding of home, emphasizing that intimacy with different places can coexist.
Themes
HomeBelongingRelationshipsIdentityNostalgia
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech about cultural diversity, I might use this quote to illustrate how different places can represent home for different people.
More from Aleksandar Hemon
All quotes →I do have a sense of displacement as constant instability — the uninterrupted existence of everything that I love and care about is not guaranteed at all. I wait for catastrophes.
Aleksandar HemonRead
Home is where somebody notices when you are no longer there.
Aleksandar HemonRead
I loved you because there was no other place for me to go. We were married because we did not know what else to do with each other. You never knew me, nothing about me, what died inside me, what lived invisibly.
Aleksandar HemonRead
All the lives I could live, all the people I will never know, never will be, they are everywhere. That is all that the world is.
Aleksandar HemonRead
I wanted us to share the sense that the number of wrong moves far exceeds the number of good moves, to share the frightening instability of the correct decision, to bond in being confounded.
Aleksandar HemonRead
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