berlinbyovernight > berlinbyovernight's Quotes

“I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

“Loneliness is a sign you are in desperate need of yourself.”
― Rupi Kaur, Milk and honey

“I'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“invent yourself and then reinvent yourself,
don't swim in the same slough.
invent yourself and then reinvent yourself and
stay out of the clutches of mediocrity.

invent yourself and then reinvent yourself,
change your tone and shape so often that they can never categorize you.

reinvigorate yourself and
accept what is
but only on the terms that you have invented
and reinvented.

be self-taught.

and reinvent your life because you must;
it is your life and
its history
and the present
belong only to
you.”
― Charles Bukowski, The Pleasures of the Damned

“If you don't know what to do, there's actually a chance of doing something new.”
― Philip Glass, Words Without Music: A Memoir

“این روز ها که می گذرد شادم
این روزها که می گذرد
شادم که می گذرد این روزها
شادم که می گذرد...”
― قیصر امین‌پور, عشق هم شاید

“من نمي دانم
_ و همين درد مرا سخت مي آزارد_
كه چرا انسان اين دانا
اين پيغمبر
:در تكاپوهايش
_چيزي از معجزه آن سو تر_
ره نبرده ست به اعجاز محبت
چه دليلي دارد؟
*
چه دليلي دارد
كه هنوز
مهرباني را نشناخته است؟
و نمي داند در يك لبخند
!چه شگفتي هايي پنهان است
*
من بر آنم كه درين دنيا
_خوب بودن _به خدا
سهل ترين كارست
و نمي دانم
كه چرا انسان
تا اين حد
با خوبي
.بيگانه است
!و همين درد مرا سخت مي آزارد”
― فریدون مشیری

“With Derrida, you can hardly misread him, because he’s so obscure. Every time you say, "He says so and so," he always says, "You misunderstood me." But if you try to figure out the correct interpretation, then that’s not so easy. I once said this to Michel Foucault, who was more hostile to Derrida even than I am, and Foucault said that Derrida practiced the method of obscurantisme terroriste (terrorism of obscurantism). We were speaking French. And I said, "What the hell do you mean by that?" And he said, "He writes so obscurely you can’t tell what he’s saying, that’s the obscurantism part, and then when you criticize him, he can always say, 'You didn’t understand me; you’re an idiot.' That’s the terrorism part." And I like that. So I wrote an article about Derrida. I asked Michel if it was OK if I quoted that passage, and he said yes.”
― John R. Searle

“Does not everything depend on our interpretation of the silence around us?”
― Lawrence Durrell, Justine

“I felt once more how simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. Nothing else.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

“It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane.”
― Philip K. Dick, VALIS

“We are all born mad. Some remain so.”
― Samuel Beckett

“Genius is the recovery of childhood at will.”
― Arthur Rimbaud

“What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more' ... Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs

“There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in.”
― Leonard Cohen, Selected Poems, 1956-1968

“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”
― Cicero

“Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

“It's like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

“Silence, I discover, is something you can actually hear.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

“This life is slow suicide, unless you read.”
― Herman Wouk, The Caine Mutiny

“Reading is like thinking, like praying, like talking to a friend, like expressing your ideas, like listening to other people's ideas, like listening to music, like looking at the view, like taking a walk on the beach.”
― Roberto Bolaño, 2666

“Only in chaos are we conceivable.”
― Roberto Bolaño, 2666

“Without turning, the pharmacist answered that he liked books like The Metamorphosis, Bartleby, A Simple Heart, A Christmas Carol. And then he said that he was reading Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's. Leaving aside the fact that A Simple Heart and A Christmas Carol were stories, not books, there was something revelatory about the taste of this bookish young pharmacist, who ... clearly and inarguably preferred minor works to major ones. He chose The Metamorphosis over The Trial, he chose Bartleby over Moby Dick, he chose A Simple Heart over Bouvard and Pecouchet, and A Christmas Carol over A Tale of Two Cities or The Pickwick Papers. What a sad paradox, thought Amalfitano. Now even bookish pharmacists are afraid to take on the great, imperfect, torrential works, books that blaze a path into the unknown. They choose the perfect exercises of the great masters. Or what amounts to the same thing: they want to watch the great masters spar, but they have no interest in real combat, when the great masters struggle against that something, that something that terrifies us all, that something that cows us and spurs us on, amid blood and mortal wounds and stench.”
― Roberto Bolano, 2666

“The truth is we never stop being children, terrible children covered in sores and knotty veins and tumors and age spots, but ultimately children, in other words we never stop clinging to life because we are life.”
― Roberto Bolaño, 2666

“The trouble with dreaming is that we eventually wake up.”
― Patti Smith, Year of the Monkey

“This is what I know - Sam is dead. My brother is dead. My mother is dead. My father is dead. My husband is dead. My cat is dead. My dog, who was dead in 1957, is still dead. Yet still I keep thinking that something wonderful is about to happen. Maybe tomorrow.”
― Patti Smith, Year of the Monkey

“She believes Marianne lacks ‘warmth’, by which she means the ability to beg for love from people who hate her.”
― Sally Rooney, Normal People

“It's funny the decisions you make because you like someone, he says, and then your whole life is different. I think we're at that weird age where life can change a lot from small decisions.”
― Sally Rooney, Normal People

“Life is the thing you bring with you inside your own head.”
― Sally Rooney, Normal People

“Why is it," he said, one time, at the subway entrance, "I feel I've known you so many years?"
"Because I like you," she said, "and I don't want anything from you.”
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451