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It happened so often—beautiful things had stupid names, and the other way around.
To her, existence consisted of days, and each day seemed to run like a circular ribbon—or, better yet, a bike chain, moving evenly over the cogs. Click—another change of speed, days became a little different, but they still flowed, still repeated, and that very monotony concealed the meaning of life . . .
Vita nostra . . . “Our life is brief, / It will shortly end; / Death comes quickly.”
But no one had ever been saved by memories, no one had been protected by words and pledges, and those loved greatly by others died too.
There are concepts that cannot be imagined but can be named. Having received a name, they change, flow into a different entity, and cease to correspond to the name, and then they can be given another, different name, and this process—the spellbinding process of creation—is infinite: this is the word that names it, and this is the word that signifies. A concept as an organism, and text as the universe.
“I’m not here for the money,” Kozhennikov said. “I don’t grow rich on you, as you can guess. The coins are only words that no one has said and no one ever will.”
Love is not when you are aroused by someone, it’s when you are afraid for that person.
By verbally identifying an object, by giving it a name, we alter it. And at the same time we prevent it from changing. A name is like a forked stick that we use to hold a snake on the ground.”
“What is meaning, Samokhina?” “Projection of will onto its field of application.”
“Did you know that I’m a pronoun?” “You? No . . . I didn’t.” The garland blinked. Kostya put the phone inside the pocket of his jacket. “And you are a verb?” “Yes.” “I knew that. Guess who I was just talking to?”
To live is to be vulnerable. To love is to fear. And the one who is not afraid—that person is calm like a boa constrictor and cannot love.”
