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el alejamiento de una cosa es proporcional más bien al poder visual de la memoria que mira que a la distancia real de los días transcurridos, como el recuerdo de un sueño de la última noche puede parecernos más lejano en su imprecisión y en su vaguedad, que un acontecimiento que data de varios años.

…yo era un hombre, uno de esos seres anfibios que están simultáneamente sumergidos en el pasado y en la realidad.

el pasado, lo mismo que el futuro, no se gusta de una vez, sino grano a grano.

In sadness there is something irreducible,something that is neither negative nor extrinsic: a passage that is experienced and is real.A duration.There is something that testifies to an ultimate irreducibility of the “bad”: it is sadness as a diminution of the power of acting or of the capacity for being affected, a sadness that is manifested in the despair of the unfortunate as well as in the hatreds of the malicious

we neither strive for, nor will, neither want, nor desire anything because we judge it to be good; on the contrary, we judge something to be good because we strive for it, will it, want it, and desire it.

the conditions under we know things and are conscious of ourselves condemn us to have only inadequate ideas, ideas that are confused and mutilated, effects separated from their real causes.

It is a curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom. Each, in its utmost development, supposes a high degree of intimacy and heart-knowledge; each renders one individual dependent for the food of his affections and spiritual life upon another; each leaves the passionate lover, or the no less passionate hater, forlorn and desolate by the withdrawal of his subject

Her spirit sank with the idea that all must have been a delusion (...) And thus much of woman was there in Hester, that she could scarcely forgive him,—least of all now, when the heavy footstep of their approaching Fate might be heard, nearer, nearer, nearer!—for being able so completely to withdraw himself from their mutual world; while she groped darkly, and stretched forth her cold hands, and found him not.

No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.

And be the stern and sad truth spoken, that the breach which guilt has once made into the human soul is never, in this mortal state, repaired.

It was the last expression of the despondency of a broken spirit. He lacked energy to grasp the better fortune that seemed within his reach.

Why shouldst thou tarry so much as one other day in the torments that have so gnawed into thy life!—that have made thee powerless even to repent! Up, and away!

She wanted—what some people want throughout life—a grief that should deeply touch her, and thus humanize and make her capable of sympathy.

The public is despotic in its temper; it is capable of denying common justice, when too strenuously demanded as a right; but quite as frequently it awards more than justice, when the appeal is made, as despots love to have it made, entirely to its generosity.

It is to the credit of human nature, that, except where its selfishness is brought into play, it loves more readily than it hates. Hatred, by a gradual and quiet process, will even be transformed to love, unless the change be impeded by a continually new irritation of the original feeling of hostility.

When an uninstructed multitude attempts to see with its eyes, it is exceedingly apt to be deceived. When, however, it forms its judgment, as it usually does, on the intuitions of its great and warm heart, the conclusions thus attained are often so profound and so unerring, as to possess the character of truths supernaturally revealed.

Skilful men, of the medical and chirurgical profession, were of rare occurrence in the colony. They seldom, it would appear, partook of the religious zeal that brought other emigrants across the Atlantic.

satire is everything that takes pleasure in the powerlessness and distress of men, everything that feeds on accusations, on malice, on belittlement, on low interpretations, everything that breaks men’s spirits (the tyrant needs broken spirits, just as broken spirits need a tyrant).

The two archenemies of the human race, Hatred and Remorse.

In sadness there's something irreducible, something that's neither negative nor extrinsic: a passage that is experienced and is real. A duration. There's something that testifies to an ultimate irreducibility of the “bad”: it is sadness as a diminution of the power of acting or of the capacity for being affected, a sadness that is manifested in the despair of the unfortunate as well as in the hatreds of the malicious

...errores en las relaciones: tener uno buen corazón, o bien amar al otro ser. Nos enamoramos por una sonrisa, por una mirada, por un hombro. Esto basta; entonces, en las largas horas de esperanza o de tristeza, fabricamos una persona, componemos un carácter. Y cuando después tratamos a la persona amada ya no podemos, por muy crueles que sean las realidades con que nos encontramos, quitar ese carácter bueno (...)

Cada persona, aun la más humilde, tiene bajo su dependencia esos pequeños seres familiares, a la vez vivos y yacentes en una especie de entumecimiento sobre el papel, los caracteres de su letra, que sólo él posee.

Que nadie se engañe: todos los países son susceptibles de locura colectiva.
Sin duda somos lo que alimentamos: nuestra capacidad para la generosidad sin límites o nuestro ciego egoísmo. Por eso, las personas dependemos en gran medida de la influencia mutua para convertirnos en las mejores o las peores versiones de nosotros mismos.

encontré muy oportunamente en mi memoria —pues siempre hay toda clase de cosas, peligrosas unas, saludables otras, en ese amasijo en el que los recuerdos sólo uno a uno se van desenredando—, descubrí, como descubre un obrero el objeto que le va a servir para lo que quiere hacer, unas palabras…

Uno d los poderes d los celos consiste en descubrirnos cómo la realidad d los hechos exteriores y los sentimientos del alma son cosa desconocida q se presta a mil suposiciones. Creemos saber exactamente las cosas y lo q piensa la gente, x la sencilla razón d q no nos importa. Pero en cuanto sentimos el deseo d saber, como le ocurre al celoso, se produce un vertiginoso caleidoscopio en el q ya no distinguimos nada.

A literalist deprives himself of the best part of art.

The plotless story is rather like free verse, or abstract art, or atonal music. Something is given up that most people imagine to be inseparable from the art form, but which, if done well (…), transcends the form and gives enormous satisfaction to those who can follow the writer into the more rarefied realms of the art.

a plot is not a story, any more than a skeleton is a living animal. It’s simply a guide to the writer, in the same way that a skeleton is a guide to a paleontologist as to what a long-extinct animal must have looked like.

La presencia, al apartar de nosotros la única realidad, la que se piensa, amortigua el sufrimiento, y la ausencia lo reanima a la vez que el amor.

Al mirar a Albertina con mis labios y alojarla en mi corazón no sólo cometí la imprudencia de hacerla vivir dentro de mí, ni esa otra imprudencia de mezclar un amor familiar con el placer de los sentidos. Quise también convencerme de que nuestras relaciones eran amor, de que practicábamos mutuamente las relaciones llamadas amor, porque me daba dócilmente los besos que le daba yo.