ogi > ogi's Quotes

“Everything in the world began with a yes. One molecule said yes to another molecule and life was born.”
― Clarice Lispector, The Hour of the Star

“I say let the world go to hell, but I should always have my tea.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground

“The chief element of happiness is this: to want to be what you are.”
― Erasmus, Praise of Folly

“It is remarkable how a man cannot summarize his thoughts in even the most general sort of way without betraying himself completely, without putting his whole self into it, quite unawares, presenting as if in allegory the basic themes and problems of his life.”
― Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain

“The days began to fly now, and yet each one of them was stretched by renewed expectations and swollen with silent, private experiences. Yes, time is a puzzling thing, there is something about it that is hard to explain.”
― Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain

“One reads alone, even in another's presence.”
― Italo Calvino, If on a Winter's Night a Traveler

“Who has not asked himself at some time or other: am I a monster or is this what it means to be a person?”
― Clarice Lispector, A Hora da Estrela

“So long as I have questions to which there are no answers, I shall go on writing.”
― Clarice Lispector, The Hour of the Star

“I only achieve simplicity with enormous effort”
― Clarice Lispector, A Hora da Estrela

“No it is not easy to write. It is as hard as breaking rocks. Sparks and splinters fly like shattered steel.”
― Clarice Lispector, The Hour of the Star

“You misinterpret everything, even the silence.”
― Franz Kafka, The Castle

“She wanted to die, but she also wanted to live in Paris.”
― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

“I am made and remade continually. Different people draw different words from me.”
― Virginia Woolf, The Waves

“I am not one and simple, but complex and many.”
― Virginia Woolf, The Waves

“I'm sick to death of this particular self. I want another.”
― Virginia Woolf, Orlando

“I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teaching my blood whispers to me.”
― Hermann Hesse, Demian: Die Geschichte von Emil Sinclairs Jugend

“You've never lived what you are thinking, and that isn't good. Only the ideas we actually live are of any value.”
― Hermann Hesse, Demian: Die Geschichte von Emil Sinclairs Jugend

“(We) consist of everything the world consists of, each of us, and just as our body contains the genealogical table of evolution as far back as the fish and even much further, so we bear everything in our soul that once was alive in the soul of men. Every god and devil that ever existed, be it among the Greeks, Chinese, or Zulus, are within us, exist as latent possibilities, as wishes, as alternatives. If the human race were to vanish from the face of the earth save for one halfway talented child that had received no education, this child would rediscover the entire course of evolution, it would be capable of producing everything once more, gods and demons, paradises, commandments, the Old and New Testament.”
― Hermann Hesse, Demian

“That is the way leaves fall around a tree in autumn, a tree unaware of the rain running down its sides, of the sun or the frost, and of life gradually retreating inward. The tree does not die. It waits.”
― Hermann Hesse, Demian: Die Geschichte von Emil Sinclairs Jugend

“Od svega ovoga što sledi niko ništa nije znao, i oni koji su me svakog dana viđali nisu znali ništa više od drugih; bili su, u odnosu na mene, kao postelja u kojoj spavam i koja ne zna moje snove. A usotalom, zar ljudsko srce nije ogromno samovanje u koje niko ne može da prodre?”
― Gustave Flaubert , November

“The White Rabbit put on his spectacles. 'Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?' he asked. 'Begin at the beginning,' the King said gravely, 'and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

“Ah, my dear! Let this be a lesson to you never to lose your temper!”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

“It happens that the stage sets collapse. Rising, streetcar, four hours in the office or the factory, meal, streetcar, four hours of work, meal, sleep, and Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday and Saturday according to the same rhythm – this path is easily followed most of the time. But one day the “why” arises and everything begins in that weariness tinged with amazement.”
― Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

“There is so much sttuborn hope in a human heart.”
― Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus