Basak > Basak's Quotes

“Two people in love, alone, isolated from the world, that's beautiful.”
― Milan Kundera

“You can't measure the mutual affection of two human beings by the number of words they exchange.”
― Milan Kundera

“Learn what is to be taken seriously and laugh at the rest.”
― Herman Hesse

“If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us.”
― Hermann Hesse, Demian: Die Geschichte von Emil Sinclairs Jugend

“She had an overwhelming desire to tell him, like the most banal of women. Don't let me go, hold me tight, make me your plaything, your slave, be strong! But they were words she could not say.

The only thing she said when he released her from his embrace was, "You don't know how happy I am to be with you." That was the most her reserved nature allowed her to express.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“She was aware that in love even the most passionate idealism will not rid the body's surface of its terrible, basic importance.”
― Milan Kundera, Laughable Loves

“You are willing to die, you coward, but not to live.”
― Herman Hesse, Steppenwolf

“Solitude is independence. It had been my wish and with the years I had attained it. It was cold. Oh, cold enough! But it was also still, wonderfully still and vast like the cold stillness of space in which the stars revolve.”
― Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf

“In eternity there is no time, only an instant long enough for a joke.”
― Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf

“For what I always hated and detested and cursed above all things was this contentment, this healthiness and comfort, this carefully preserved optimism of the middle classes, this fat and prosperous brood of mediocrity.”
― Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf

“Your soul is the whole world.”
― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

“You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia

“It is our suffering that brings us together. It is not love. Love does not obey the mind, and turns to hate when forced. The bond that binds us is beyond choice. We are brothers. We are brothers in what we share. In pain, which each of us must suffer alone, in hunger, in poverty, in hope, we know our brotherhood. We know it, because we have had to learn it. We know that there is no help for us but from one another, that no hand will save us if we do not reach out our hand. And the hand that you reach out is empty, as mine is. You have nothing. You possess nothing. You own nothing. You are free. All you have is what you are, and what you give.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia

“If you evade suffering you also evade the chance of joy. Pleasure you may get, or pleasures, but you will not be fulfilled. You will not know what it is to come home.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia

“Change is freedom, change is life.

It's always easier not to think for oneself. Find a nice safe hierarchy and settle in. Don't make changes, don't risk disapproval, don't upset your syndics. It's always easiest to let yourself be governed.

There's a point, around age twenty, when you have to choose whether to be like everybody else the rest of your life, or to make a virtue of your peculiarities.

Those who build walls are their own prisoners. I'm going to go fulfil my proper function in the social organism. I'm going to go unbuild walls.”
― Ursula Le Guin, The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia

“The individual cannot bargain with the State. The State recognizes no coinage but power: and it issues the coins itself.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia

“I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

“You cannot find peace by avoiding life.”
― Michael Cunningham, The Hours

“She was ready to deny the existence of space and time rather than admit that love might not be eternal.”
― Simone de Beauvoir, The Mandarins

“I am incapable of conceiving infinity, and yet I do not accept finity. I want this adventure that is the context of my life to go on without end.”
― Simone de Beauvoir , La vieillesse

“I am too intelligent, too demanding, and too resourceful for anyone to be able to take charge of me entirely. No one knows me or loves me completely. I have only myself”
― Simone de Beauvoir

“I am awfully greedy; I want everything from life. I want to be a woman and to be a man, to have many friends and to have loneliness, to work much and write good books, to travel and enjoy myself, to be selfish and to be unselfish… You see, it is difficult to get all which I want. And then when I do not succeed I get mad with anger.”
― Simone de Beauvoir

“That's what I consider true generosity: You give your all, and yet you always feel as if it costs you nothing.”
― Simone de Beauvoir

“... bu yeniyetmelik de nasıl şeyse yeniliği gidiyor kendisi eskiden kalma bir yetememeliğe dönüşerek hep kalıyor...”
― Şule Gürbüz, Zamanın Farkında

“Kendimde bir tuhaflık algılar gibi oldum ama üzerinde durmadım. Dursam, Allah korusun bir dursam, dünyada duracak başka ne bir yol ne bir durak ne bir şey bulurdum. O yüzden kendi üzerimde pek durmadım. Kendi üzerinde duran, bu ağırlıkla kendi üzerine yıkılandan başkası olamaz. Kendine yıkılan da böylelikle başkasına yıkılamaz. Biraz marazi, biraz zararsız, şairin dediği gibi “Ayakkabı çivisi gibi kendine batan,” olur ki, dünya kendine değil başkasına batanı, kendine değil başkasına yıkılanı, kendini değil başkasını suçlayanı sevdiği, istediği ve kabul ettiğinden onu hemen defoluların arasına ayırıverir. Ama sorsanız kitaplarında, gerek gökten inenlerinde, gerek yerden bitenlerin iyicelerinde böyle değilmiş gibi yapar söyler, bunu yaymak için peygamberler ve peygamber mizaçlılar ortaya çıkarır. Sonunda onları da ya çarmıha gerer, ya perişan eder. Dünya kendi hakikatleri hakkında tamamen yalancı ve ikiyüzlüdür. Dünya bir ahlaksıza namuslu ve saffet sahibi muamelesi yapan adamın perişanlığını ve zilletini, ona yüksek ve kutsal muamelesi yapanı perişan ederek yaşatır. Bir gece vakti karşı karşıya kitaplarıyla, hikmeti ile gözünüzde yaş, kalbinizde sıkıştıran İlhami bir duygu ile otururken her şeye inandıran dünya, sabah olunca göz kırparak rezili ve zelili sizi aşağılamakta kullanır.”
― Şule Gürbüz, Coşkuyla Ölmek

“Yazan bir parça ölmüş, okuyan ben kısmi ölü, ama bu hayat nasıl şeyse böyle yarı canlılara talip, bizi sürükler yine bırakmazdı. Ne olurdu şöyle kayıversem toprağa. Hayır. Hala da sağım ve ölme coşkumu yitirdim. Artık öldüğümde ya hastalıktan ya ihtiyarlıktan öleceğim. Bunu düşünmek beni için için eritiyor, ölümden artık utanıyorum. Genç, hayattan utanandır, burada bu halde olmaktan utanan. İhtiyarsa yaşamış olduğu için ölümden utanan.”
― Şule Gürbüz, Coşkuyla Ölmek

“Ben kendimi ömrüm boyu, neden bilemem, sebeplerini bilemem, bir kusur timsali olarak gördüm. Bir kusur sürahisi idim de ne akıtsam öyle akıtır, kusurlu akıtırdım. Hep eksik ve kırıktım da tamamlanamazdım. Hep yarım ve yanlış anlamadaydım da doğrulamazdım. Hep bir ayıp gizlemek zorundaydım da bu ayıp zaten bendim, bundan kurtulamazdım. (...) Dertli olduğumu ve deva bulmaz olduğumu elbet biliyordum ama kusur bilmezliğin de bir sıhhat olduğunu zannedecek kadar hasta değildim. Hasta idim de kusursuzluk sıhhat ise ben ancak nezle idim. Nezlemle herkesi öpesim vardı da yine de iğreniyordum.”
― Şule Gürbüz, Coşkuyla Ölmek

“Anlamak dururken söylemek, bilmem ama sanki biraz eğretidir.”
― Şule Gürbüz, Coşkuyla Ölmek

“Kitsch" is a German word born in the middle of the sentimental nineteenth century, and from German is entered all Western languages. Repeated use, however, has obliterated its original metaphysical meaning: kitsch is the absolute denial of shit, in both the literal and figurative sense of the word; kitsch excludes everything from its purview which is essentially unacceptable in human existence.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“madam," the man cried, leaping to the ground, "you're hurt!" "I'm dead, sir!" she replied. A few minutes later, they became engaged.”
― Virginia Woolf, Orlando