Ghosts Quotes

“But the present is no less dark than the past, and its mystery is equal to anything the future might hold. Such is the way of the world: one step at a time, one word and then the next.”
― Paul Auster, Ghosts

“They have trapped Blue into doing nothing, into being so inactive as to reduce his life to almost no life at all. Yes, says Blue to himself, that's what it feels like: like nothing at all. He feels like a man who has been condemned to sit in a room and go on reading a book for the rest of his life. This is strange enough - to be only half alive at best, seeing the world only through words, living only through the lives of others.”
― Paul Auster, Ghosts

“We are not where we are . . . but in a false position. Through an infirmity of our natures, we suppose a case, and put ourselves into it, and hence are in two cases at the same time, and it is doubly difficult to get out.”
― Paul Auster, Ghosts

“Knowledge comes slowly, and when it comes, it is often at great personal expense.”
― Paul Auster, Ghosts

“Ma il presente non è meno oscuro del passato, e il suo mistero è pari ai segreti che serba il futuro. Così va il mondo: un passo dopo l'altro, una parola e poi la successiva. Ci sono cose che Blue, a questo punto, proprio non può sapere. Perché la conoscenza arriva piano, e quando arriva spesso costa cara.”
― Paul Auster, Ghosts

“Words do not necessarily work, it
is possible for them to obscure the things they are trying to say.”
― Paul Auster, Ghosts

“Silence is not a rewarding response, no matter what it means.”
― Paul Auster, Ghosts

“To fight is already to have accepted it, to want to say no is already to have said yes.”
― Paul Auster, Ghosts

“[...] nella vita di un uomo le occasioni perdute non contano meno di quelle colte, e una storia non può reggersi sui se.”
― Paul Auster, Ghosts