Stupeur et tremblements Quotes

“Honor sometimes means doing something very unwise. Behaving like an idiot is better than dishonor. To this day I blush for having chosen sensible restraint over common decency.”
― Amélie Nothomb, Stupeur et tremblements

“Society conspires against her from early infancy. Her brain is steadily filled with plaster until it sets: ‘If you’re not married by the time you’re twenty-five, you’ll have good reason to be ashamed’; ‘if you laugh, you won’t look dignified’ ; ‘if your face betrays your feelings, you’ll look coarse’; ‘if you mention the existence of a single body hair, you’re repulsive’ ; ‘if a boy kisses you on the cheek in public, you’re a whore’; if you enjoy eating, you’re a pig’; ‘if you take pleasure in sleeping, you’re no better than a cow’; and so on.

These precepts would be merely anecdotal if they weren’t taken so much to heart.”
― Amélie Nothomb, Stupeur et tremblements

“كل إنسان يشهد يوم صدمته النفسية الأولية التي تقسم وجوده إلى ما قبل تلك الصدمة وما بعدها ، فتكون ذكرياته ، حتى العابرة منها ، كافية لتثبته في رعب لا معقول ، حيواني ، لا يشفى منه أبدا .”
― Amélie Nothomb, Stupeur et tremblements

“I don’t understand. She’s always been so friendly toward me.”

“Yes, so long as your work consisted of updating calendars and photocopying golf club bylaws.”

“But there was no danger of my taking her place!”

“She was never afraid of that.”

“Then why denounce me? Why would it upset her if I went to work for you?”

“Miss Mori struggled for years to get the job she has now. She probably found it unbearable for you to get that sort of promotion after being with the company only ten weeks.”

“I can’t believe it. That’s just so … mean.”

“All I can say is that she suffered greatly during the first few years she was here.”

“So she wants me to suffer the same fate? It’s too pathetic. I must talk to her.”

“Do you really think that’s a good idea?”

“Of course. How else are we going to work things out if we don’t talk?”

“You just talked to Mister Omochi. Does it strike you that things have been worked out?”
― Amélie Nothomb, Stupeur et tremblements

“إن أبسط إنسان على وجه الأرض سيكون له نصيب من الحرية ، طالما وجدت نوافذ .”
― Amélie Nothomb, Stupeur et tremblements

“My mind was not that of a conqueror, but that of a cow that spends its life chewing contentedly in the meadow of invoices, waiting for the train of eternal grace to pass by. How good it felt to exist without pride of ambition. To live in hibernation.”
― Amélie Nothomb, Stupeur et tremblements

“The accountants who spent ten hours a day copying out numbers were, to my mind, victims sacrificed on the altar of a divinity wholly bereft of either greatness or mystery. These humble creatures were devoting their entire lives to a reality beyond their grasp. In days gone by they might have at least believed there was some purpose to their servitude. Now they no longer had any illusions. They were giving up their lives for nothing, and they knew it.

Everyone knows that Japan has the highest suicide rate of any country in the world. What surprised me was that suicides were not more common.”
― Amélie Nothomb, Stupeur et tremblements

“La Pascua me satisface tanto como me deprime la Navidad. Un Dios que se convierte en bebé produce consternación. Un pobre tipo que se convierte en Dios es otra cosa”
― Amélie Nothomb, Stupeur et tremblements

“Les mois passèrent. Chaque jour, le temps perdait de sa consistance. J'étais incapable de déterminer s'il s'écoulait vite ou lentement.”
― Amélie Nothomb, Stupeur et tremblements

“People with menial jobs conjure up what Nietzsche calls a background world, forcing themselves to believe in an earthly or heavenly paradise. Their mental Eden is as seductive as their job is repugnant.”
― Amélie Nothomb, Stupeur et tremblements

“Japanese women live in fear of making the least sound in a bathroom stall. Japanese men pay no attention to the subject whatsoever.”
― Amélie Nothomb, Stupeur et tremblements

“تمضي الأيام وأنا لا أصلح لشيء، دون أن أرى في ذلك ما يضير، يخيّل إليّ أني نُسيت وهو أمرٌ لا يزعجني بالمرّة!”
― Amélie Nothomb, Stupeur et tremblements

“Comment pourrais-tu aimer quelq'un avec le plâtre qui t'immobilise le coeur? On t'a imposé trop de calculs pour que tu puisses aimer. Si tu aimes quelqu'un, c'est qu'on t'a mal éduqué.”
― Amélie Nothomb, Stupeur et tremblements

“Fubuki, wouldn’t it be a thousand times better to stay unmarried than tie yourself down with some creep? What would you do with a husband like that? And how can you feel ashamed of not marrying one of these men, when you’re so sublime, so Olympian? They’re almost all shorter than you. Don’t you think that’s a sign? You’re too long a bow for any of these pathetic little shooters.”
― Amélie Nothomb, Stupeur et tremblements

“عظيم أن يعرف المرء متى يموت، يمكن أن ينظم أمره ويجعل من يومه الأخير عملًا فنيًا!”
― Amélie Nothomb, Stupeur et tremblements

“-لا أحد يمكن أن يكون على هذا القدر من الغباء كي يرتكب أخطاءً مثل هذه.
-بلى، أنا!”
― Amélie Nothomb, Stupeur et tremblements

“El poder no me interesa. Reinar es mucho más hermoso”
― Amélie Nothomb, Stupeur et tremblements

“Il y a toujours moyen d'obéir. C'est ce que les cerveaux occidentaux devraient comprendre.”
― Amélie Nothomb, Stupeur et tremblements

“Les chiffres, dont j'avais toujours admiré la calme beauté pythagoricienne, devinrent mes ennemis. La calculette aussi me voulait du mal.”
― Amélie Nothomb, Stupeur et tremblements

“I glanced at the contents of what I was photocopying. They were the rules of the golf club of which Mister Saito was a member. I started to laugh.

The next minute I felt more like crying, thinking about all the innocent trees that my superior was wasting to chastise me. I imagined the forests of the Japan of my childhood—maples, cedars, and ginkgoes—felled for the sole purpose of punishing a creature as insignificant as myself. I remembered, again, that Fubuki’s family name meant “forest.”
― Amélie Nothomb, Stupeur et tremblements

“Tú que eres sublime. Olímpica. Tú que eres una obra maestra, (…).
Eres un arco demasiado grande para tan lamentables arqueros”
― Amélie Nothomb, Stupeur et tremblements

“Every existence contains its primal trauma, an event dividing life into a before and an after, a trauma so great that even the most furtive memory of it is enough to make an individual freeze in irrational, incurable, animal terror.”
― Amélie Nothomb, Stupeur et tremblements

“تعتبر بيوت الراحة مكانا ملائما للتأمل ، كما يلاحظه - دون ريب - أي شخص عادي . أما بالنسبة إلي أنا ، التي صارت راهبة كرملية ، فهي مناسبة للتفكير . هناك فهمت حقيقة مهمة : في اليابان ، الحياة هي الشركة .”
― Amélie Nothomb, Stupeur et tremblements

“فالأنظمة الأكثر شمولية تثير في الأمم الخاضعة لها أفظع الحالات انحرافا ، وتبدي بسبب ذلك تحديدا ، تسامحا نسبيا تجاه أكثر السلوكيات البشرية غرابة .”
― Amélie Nothomb, Stupeur et tremblements

“من واجبك أن تنجبي أطفالًا تعاملينهم كأرباب حتّى سن الثالثة، فهو العمر الذي تطردينهم فيه من الجنة بشكلٍ قاطع، لتسجيلهم في الخدمة العسكرية التي تدوم من سن الثالثة حتى الثالثة عشرة ثم من سن الخامسة والعشرين إلى مماتهم. أنتِ مضطرة أن تلدي كائنات ستكون تعيسة بشكلٍ رهيب لا سيما أنها لقنت خلال أعوامها الأولى مبدأ السعادة.”
― Amélie Nothomb, Stupeur et tremblements

“Y, por último —y sobre todo—, porque una belleza que ha sobrevivido a tantos corsés físicos y mentales, a tantas coacciones, abusos, absurdas prohibiciones, dogmas, asfixia, desolación, sadismo, conspiración de silencio y humillaciones, una belleza así constituye un milagro de heroísmo.”
― Amélie Nothomb, Stupeur et tremblements

“Japón es un país que sabe lo que significa volverse loco”
― Amélie Nothomb, Stupeur et tremblements

“كانت النافذة هي الحد الفاصل بين الضوء الفظيع والظلمة الرائعة، بين بيوت الراحة واللانهاية، بين الصحي وما يستحيل غسله، بين سيفون المرحاض والسماء. إن أبسط إنسان على وجه الأرض سيكون له نصيب من الحرية، طالما وُجدت نوافذ.”
― Amélie Nothomb, Stupeur et tremblements

“Si tu admires ta propre joliesse dans le miroir, que ce soit dans la peur et non dans le plaisir : car ta beauté ne t'apportera rien d'autre que la terreur de la perdre.”
― Amélie Nothomb, Stupeur et tremblements

“N'espère pas être amoureuse, car tu n'en vaux pas la peine : ceux qui t'aimeraient t'aimeraient pour tes mirages, jamais pour ta vérité.”
― Amélie Nothomb, Stupeur et tremblements