Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead

by Olga Tokarczuk

Just a piece of matter, which some unimaginable processes had reduced to a fragile object, separated from everything else.

The forest nurtured this little goblin. Thus he should have respected the forest, but he did not.

it crossed my mind that the thing that leaves the body sucks a piece of the world after it, and no matter how good or bad it was, how guilty or blameless, it leaves behind a great big void.

With age, many men come down with testosterone autism, the symptoms of which are a gradual decline in social intelligence and capacity for interpersonal communication, as well as a reduced ability to formulate thoughts.

Only a piece of machinery could possibly carry all the world’s pain. Only a machine, simple, effective and just. But if everything were to happen mechanically, our prayers wouldn’t be needed.

As I gazed at the black-and-white landscape of the Plateau I realized that sorrow is an important word for defining the world. It lies at the foundations of everything, it is the fifth element, the quintessence.

a way, people like her, those who wield a pen, can be dangerous. At once a suspicion of fakery springs to mind—that such a Person is not him- or herself, but an eye that’s constantly watching, and whatever it sees it changes into sentences; in the process it strips reality of its most essential quality—its inexpressibility.

have also heard that sometimes they make mistakes and take glowing cigarette butts to their nests; like this they become fire-raisers, and burn down the building on which they’ve built their nest. Our good old Magpie has a lovely name in Latin: Pica pica.

As he was writing, I tried to slow down my thoughts, but they must have broken the speed limit by now, and were racing in my head, somehow managing to pervade my body and my bloodstream as well.

He was one of those ironists who don’t like pathos, so they button their lip to avoid being infected by it. They fear pathos more than hell.

choose. This connection with something as great and monumental as the sky makes us feel uncomfortable. We’d rather be small, and then our petty little sins would be forgivable.

For a time I slept with a Protestant, who in his turn designed motorways, and he told me, probably quoting Luther, that he who suffers sees the back of God. I wondered if this meant the shoulders, or the buttocks perhaps, and what this divine back looks like, since we’re incapable of imagining the front. Maybe it means that he who suffers has special access to God, by a side door, he is blessed, he embraces some sort of truth which without suffering would be hard to comprehend. So in a way, the only person who’s healthy is one who suffers, however strange it might sound. I think that would be in harmony with the rest.

On a Wednesday in January, at seven in the morning, it’s plain to see that the world was not made for Man, and definitely not for his comfort or pleasure.

It’s clear that the largest things are contained in the smallest. There can be no doubt about it. At this very moment, as I write, there’s a planetary configuration on this table, the entire Cosmos if you like: a thermometer, a coin, an aluminum spoon and a porcelain cup. A key, a cell phone, a piece of paper and a pen. And one of my gray hairs, whose atoms preserve the memory of the origins of life, of the cosmic Catastrophe that gave the world its beginning.

In a sense, houses are living creatures that coexist with Man in exemplary symbiosis.

looked as if they had awoken from the deep sleep into which material sinks when it’s not disturbed.

“From nature’s point of view no creatures are useful or not useful. That’s just a foolish distinction applied by people.”

Being healthy is an insecure state and does not bode well. It’s better to be ill in a quiet way, then at least we know what we’re going to die

ridiculous. Everything will pass. The wise Man knows this from the start, and has no regrets.

The psyche is our defense system—it makes sure we’ll never understand what’s going on around us. Its main task is to filter information, even though the capabilities of our brains are enormous. For it would be impossible to carry the weight of this knowledge. Because every tiny particle of the world is made of suffering.