The Books of Jacob

by Olga Tokarczuk

What is man? A spark. What is human life? A moment. What is the future now? A spark. And what the crazed course of time? A moment. Where does man come from? A spark. And what is death? A moment. Who was He while he contained the world? A spark. And what will he be once he swallows up the world again? A moment.

To be impatient means never really living, being always in the future, in what will happen, but which is after all not yet here. Do not impatient people resemble spirits who are never here in this place, and now, in this very moment, but rather sticking their heads out of life like those wanderers who supposedly, when they found themselves at the end of the world, just looked onward, beyond the horizon? What did they see there? What is it that an impatient person hopes to glimpse?