Blind Rider Quotes

“Time was a blind rider nobody could unsaddle. As he galloped, he ravaged all that seemed enduring, transformed landscapes, reduced dreams to ashes.”
― Juan Goytisolo, Blind Rider

“Their destiny – hers, his, that of every descendant from the Cave – would be the same as the thistle the image of which obsessed Tolstoy, the same stubborn thistle he sought out in the Caucasian mountains. He was travelling in a scrap metal car along the muddy track to Shatoi and caught a glimpse, beneath them, of tanks and vehicles incinerated in an ambush similar to the one set for the Tsar’s soldiers a century and a half earlier. He witnessed once more history’s stupid repetitions, its obtuse cruelty.”
― Juan Goytisolo, Blind Rider

“Each organism lived its cycle, whether long or short, then died. Only the animal and vegetable species didn’t know they were dying and his – the inhuman – did. He was tormented by the idea of leaving the world, not the natural business of leaving it, but because he would depart before extracting a possible meaning: so-called experience had alienated him from life and its rhythms, his thirst for knowledge had led to an unlearning of all wisdom and certainties. All that remained of him was the shadow projected from the window of a train hurtling towards an unknown destination.”
― Juan Goytisolo, Blind Rider