Elliot Perlman > Quotes

“Memory is a wilful dog. It won't be summoned or dismissed but it cannot survive without you. It can sustain you or feed on you. It visits when it is hungry, not when you are. It has a schedule all of its own that you can never know. It can capture, corner you or liberate you. It can leave you howling and it can make you smile.”
― Elliot Perlman

“Steinbeck wasn't the thirties and Dickens wasn't the eighteen-hundreds. They were of their times but for the ages. Their writings are not products marketed for a brief time until they're out of vogue and discarded on the scrap heap.”
― Elliot Perlman, Seven Types of Ambiguity

“Being judgmental must surely be one of the most joyful activities known to the species and it is cruel that other animals are denied this pleasure.”
― Elliot Perlman, Three Dollars

“Cuando te separas nunca tienes en cuenta la posibilidad de que al dejar lo mejor que has tenido hasta entonces, no tendrás nada mejor”
― Elliot Perlman

“She cried until the tears were no longer able to meet the demands of her sadness”
― Elliot Perlman, Three Dollars

“Memory is a wilful dog. It won’t be summoned or dismissed but it cannot survive without you. It can sustain you or feed on you. It visits when it is hungry, not when you are. It has a schedule of its own that you can never know. It can capture you, corner you or it can liberate you. It can leave you howling and it can make you smile. Sometimes it’s funny what you remember.”
― Elliot Perlman, The Street Sweeper

“What is it about men that makes women so lonely?”
― Elliot Perlman, Seven Types of Ambiguity

“...you can drop those 'a'ints' too. It ain't 'acting white' to speak your own language properly. People fought for you to get the best possible education. It would break your grandpa's heart to hear you talk like nothing had changed.”
― Elliot Perlman, The Street Sweeper

“Anybody who doesn’t want or need something is dead. And anyone who does need something can be hurt.”
― Elliot Perlman, Seven Types of Ambiguity

“Je n'étais même pas libre de pleurer. Qui est jamais libre de pleurer ? Il y a toujours des gens autour, des gens capables de regarder sans le voir un homme sur son chemin de croix, avec sa carrière dans des cartons, mais incapables de supporter le festin visuel d'un homme en pleurs, oui, en pleurs, emporté par l'hiver de son déplaisir.

Mais eux non plus, ils n'étaient pas libres d'ingérer le spectacle et de retourner à leurs affaires pour pleurer, de peur que leurs collègues ne les voient en larmes devant leur écran d'ordinateur. Le dernier qui pleurera aura gagné. Nous savons tous ça. Les enfants le tiennent pour un article de foi. Les adultes, eux, ne sont plus en position de le formuler comme tel, mais ils le savent d'instinct. En conclusion, personne n'est libre de pleurer. Personne excepté Tanya.

Devant le gare, il m'est apparu que personne n'est réellement libre, pas seulement en matière de larmes, mais en toute chose. Si un évènement ou une situation détermine ou en cause une autre, en quel sens peut-on prétendre que nous sommes libres d'agir ou non ? Si notre comportement est déterminé par toute une série de facteurs, notre structure génétique, la manière dont nous avons été mis au monde, notre perception de l'amour, l'attention et le confort matériel que nous avons connus enfant, jusqu'à notre taux de sucre dans le sang et notre exposition immédiate aux conditions climatiques dominantes, en quoi sommes-nous libres ?

Et même si nous pouvions calculer l'effet de tous ces facteurs et prédire notre comportement, nous ne serions toujours pas libres. Car être capable de prédire les évènements futurs ne permet pas pour autant de les influencer si les variables qui les déterminent échappent à notre contrôle.”
― Elliot Perlman, Three Dollars

“Have you ever expatiated on a particular experience to give a new acquaintance the impression of instant intimacy? It is not an uncommon form of flattery.”
― Elliot Perlman, Seven Types of Ambiguity

“While he recognized that you were unhappy and unwell, I think he couldn't help but feel that there was some part of you, some part bound inextricably to your illness, that everybody could do with a little more of. Not the melancholy, of course, or even the capacity for quips and one-liners ("Give me lithium or give me death," remember?). Perhaps it was just what he more than once described as a mixture in you of acuity and romanticism that made most other people's versions of sanity appear hollow compromises, or evasions.”
― Elliot Perlman, Seven Types of Ambiguity

“Exhale too fast and you’d blow them over and with them their memories would spill out onto the very European ground their families now fertilised.”
― Elliot Perlman, The Street Sweeper

“I had thought that I knew her affliction and not merely the fact of it. It was no stranger to me. I understood it emotionally, empathetically. But I had only ever touched down at its airport. She was a citizen of its vast interior.”
― Elliot Perlman, Three Dollars

“MEMORY IS A WILLFUL DOG. It won’t be summoned or dismissed but it cannot survive without you. It can sustain you or feed on you. It visits when it is hungry, not when you are. It has a schedule of its own that you can never know. It can capture you, corner you or it can liberate you. It can leave you howling and it can make you smile. Sometimes it’s funny what you remember.”
― Elliot Perlman, The Street Sweeper

“The distance between what you say in a daydream and what you actually say to a superior at your place of work is proportional to the number of adults unsuccessfully seeking full-time employment.”
― Elliot Perlman, Three Dollars

“When the words dance privately for you, it is possible to feel not alone.”
― Elliot Perlman, Seven Types of Ambiguity