An Apprenticeship or The Book of Pleasures Quotes

“Mira a todos a tu alrededor y ve lo que hemos hecho de nosotros y de eso considerado como victoria nuestra de cada día. No hemos amado por encima de todas las cosas. No hemos aceptado lo que no se entiende porque no queremos pasar por tontos. Hemos amontonado cosas y seguridades por no tenernos el uno al otro. No tenemos ninguna alegría que no haya sido catalogada. Hemos construido catedrales y nos hemos quedado del lado de afuera, pues las catedrales que nosotros mismos construimos tememos que sean trampas. No nos hemos entregado a nosotros mismos, pues eso sería el comienzo de una vida larga y la tememos. Hemos evitado caer de rodillas delante del primero de nosotros que por amor diga: tienes miedo. Hemos organizado asociaciones y clubs sonrientes donde se sirve con o sin soda. Hemos tratado de salvarnos, pero sin usar la palabra salvación para no avergonzarnos de ser inocentes. No hemos usado la palabra amor para no tener que reconocer su contextura de odio, de amor, de celos y de tantos otros opuestos. Hemos mantenido en secreto nuestra muerte para hacer posible nuestra vida. Muchos de nosotros hacen arte por no saber cómo es la otra cosa. Hemos disfrazado con falso amor nuestra indiferencia, sabiendo que nuestra indiferencia es angustia disfrazada. Hemos disfrazado con el pequeño miedo el gran miedo mayor y por eso nunca hablamos de lo que realmente importa. Hablar de lo que realmente importa es considerado una indiscreción. No hemos adorado por tener la sensata mezquindad de acordarnos a tiempo de los falsos dioses. No hemos sido puros e ingenuos para no reírnos de nosotros mismos y para que al fin del día podamos decir «al menos no fui tonto» y así no quedarnos perplejos antes de apagar la luz. Hemos sonreído en público de lo que no sonreiríamos cuando nos quedásemos solos. Hemos llamado debilidad a nuestro candor. Nos hemos temido uno al otro, por encima de todo. Y todo eso lo consideramos victoria nuestra de cada día.”
― Clarice Lispector, Aprendizaje o El libro de los placeres

“…the greatest obstacle to my progress is me. I myself have been the biggest difficulty in my path. It’s with enormous effort that I’m able to overcome myself.”
― Clarice Lispector, Aprendizaje o El libro de los placeres

“Não entender era tão vasto que ultrapassava qualquer entender - entender era sempre limitado. Mas não entender não tinha fronteiras e levava ao infinito, ao Deus. Não era um não entender como um simples de espírito. O bom era ter uma inteligência e não entender. Era uma benção estranha como a de ter uma loucura sem ser doida. Era um desinteresse manso em relação às coisas ditas do intelecto, uma doçura de estupidez. Mas de vez em quando vinha a inquietação insuportável: queria entender o bastante para pelo menos ter mais consciência daquilo que ela não entendia. Embora no fundo não quisesse compreender. Sabia que aquilo era impossível e todas as vezes que pensara que se compreendera era por ter compreendido errado. Compreender era sempre um erro - preferia a largueza tão ampla e livre e sem erros que era não entender. Era ruim, mas pelo menos sabia que estava em plena condição humana. No entanto às vezes adivinhava. Eram manchas cósmicas que substituíam entender.”
― Clarice Lispector, Aprendizaje o El libro de los placeres

“Could love be giving your own solitude to another? Because that's the ultimate thing you can give of yourself.”
― Clarice Lispector, An Apprenticeship or The Book of Pleasures

“- My mystery is simple: I don't know how to be alive. - Because you only know, or only knew, how to be alive through pain.”
― Clarice Lispector, An Apprenticeship or The Book of Pleasures

“There could only be a meeting of their mysteries if one surrendered to the other: the surrender of two unknowable worlds done with the trust with which two understandings might surrender to each other.”
― Clarice Lispector, An Apprenticeship or The Book of Pleasures

“But she didn't fear the moon because she was more lunar than solar and could see with wide-open eyes in the dark dawns the sinister moon in the sky. So she bathed all over in the lunar rays, as there are others who sunbathed. And was becoming profoundly limpid.”
― Clarice Lispector, An Apprenticeship or The Book of Pleasures

“And one of the things I learned is that one should live in spite of. Although, one should eat. Although, one should love. Although, it must die. Even it is often the same even though it pushes us forward. It was despite the fact that it gave me an unhappy anguish that was the creator of my own life.”
― Clarice Lispector, Aprendizaje o El libro de los placeres

“No, no, she wasn’t lost, she was even going to make a list of things she could do!
She sat with a blank page and wrote: eat — look at fruit in the market — see people’s faces — feel love — feel hate — have something not known and feel an unbearable suffering — wait impatiently for the beloved — sea — go into the sea — buy a new swimsuit — make coffee — look at objects — listen to music — holding hands — irritation — be right — not be right and give in to someone who is — be forgiven for the vanity of living — be a woman — do myself credit — laugh at the absurdity of my condition — have no choice — have a choice — fall asleep — but of bodily love I shall not speak.”
― Clarice Lispector, An Apprenticeship or The Book of Pleasures

“I’m an insurmountable mountain along my own path. But sometimes through a word of yours or a word I read, suddenly everything becomes clear.”
― Clarice Lispector, An Apprenticeship or The Book of Pleasures

“What can I do with happiness? What can I do with this strange and piercing peace, which is already starting to hurt me like an anguish, like a great silence of spaces? To whom can I give my happiness, which is already starting to scratch me a bit and scares me. No, I don’t want to be happy. I prefer mediocrity. Ah, thousands of people don’t have the nerve to linger a while longer in this unknown thing which is feeling happy and they prefer mediocrity.”
― Clarice Lispector, An Apprenticeship or The Book of Pleasures

“Ah how much easier to to bear and understand pain than that promise of spring’s frigid and liquid joy. And with such modesty she was awaiting it: the poignancy of goodness.”
― Clarice Lispector, An Apprenticeship or The Book of Pleasures

“No entender" era tan vasto que sobrepasaba a cualquier entender - entender era siempre limitado-. Pero no-entender no tenía fronteras y llevaba al infinito, al Dios.”
― Clarice Lispector, Aprendizaje o El libro de los placeres

“one of the things I’ve learned is that we ought to live despite.”
― Clarice Lispector, An Apprenticeship or The Book of Pleasures

“life isn’t a joke because in the middle of the day you die. A human being’s most pressing need was to become a human being.”
― Clarice Lispector, An Apprenticeship or The Book of Pleasures

“The last lights were undulating on the standing green water of the pool. Discovering the sublime in the trivial, the invisible underneath the tangible—she herself completely disarmed as if in that instant she'd learned that her ability to uncover the secrets of natural life was still intact. And also disarmed by the slight anguish that came to her when she felt she could uncover other secrets too, perhaps a mortal secret. But she knew she was ambitious: she'd scorn easy success and want, though she was afraid, to rise higher and higher or descend lower and lower.”
― Clarice Lispector, An Apprenticeship or The Book of Pleasures

“The night that wouldn't, and wouldn't, and wouldn't come, that was impossible. And her love that now was impossible—that was dry the way the fever of someone who doesn't sweat was love without opium or morphine. And "I love you" was a splinter you couldn't remove with tweezers. A splinter buried in the toughest part of the sole of your foot.”
― Clarice Lispector, An Apprenticeship or The Book of Pleasures

“Nós ainda somos moços, podemos perder algum tempo sem perder a vida inteira. Mas olhe para todos ao seu redor e veja o que temos feito de nós e a isso considerado vitória nossa de cada dia. Não temos amado, acima de todas as coisas. Não temos aceito o que não se entende porque não queremos passar por tolos. Temos amontoado coisas e seguranças por não nos termos um ao outro. Não temos nenhuma alegria que já não tenha sido catalogada. Temos construído catedrais, e ficado do lado de fora pois as catedrais que nós mesmos construímos, tememos que sejam armadilhas. Não nos temos entregue a nós mesmos, pois isso seria o começo de uma vida larga e nós a tememos. Temos evitado cair de joelhos diante do primeiro de nós que por amor diga: tens medo. Temos organizado associações e clubes sorridentes onde se serve com ou sem soda. Temos procurado nos salvar mas sem usar a palavra salvação para não nos envergonharmos de ser inocentes. Não temos usado a palavra amor para não termos de reconhecer sua contextura de ódio, de amor, de ciúme e de tantos outros contraditórios. Temos mantido em segredo a nossa morte para tornar nossa vida possível. Muitos de nós fazem arte por não saber como é a outra coisa. Temos
disfarçado com falso amor a nossa indiferença, sabendo que nossa indiferença é angústia disfarçada. Temos disfarçado com o pequeno medo o grande medo maior e por isso nunca falamos no que realmente importa. Falar no que realmente importa é considerado uma gafe. Não temos adorado por termos a sensata mesquinhez de nos lembrarmos a tempo dos falsos deuses. Não temos sido puros e ingênuos para não rirmos de nós
mesmos e para que no fim do dia possamos dizer "pelo menos não fui tolo" e assim não ficarmos perplexos antes de apagar a luz. Temos sorrido em público do que não sorriríamos quando ficássemos sozinhos. Temos chamado de fraqueza a nossa candura. Temo-nos temido um ao outro, acima de tudo. E a tudo isso consideramos a vitória nossa de cada dia.”
― Clarice Lispector, Aprendizaje o El libro de los placeres

“It’s because I don’t want to be platonic in relation to myself. I’m profoundly defeated by the world I live in. I separated myself just for a while because of my defeat and because I felt that other people were defeated too. So I closed myself up in an individualization that if I hadn’t been careful could have been transformed into a hysterical or contemplative solitude.”
― Clarice Lispector, An Apprenticeship or The Book of Pleasures

“it's only when we forget all our knowledge that we begin to know”
― Clarice Lispector, An Apprenticeship or The Book of Pleasures

“we can waste some time without wasting our whole lives.”
― Clarice Lispector, An Apprenticeship or The Book of Pleasures

“She wanted the best oils and perfumes, wanted the best kind of life, wanted the most tender hopes, wanted the best delicate meats and also the heaviest ones to eat, wanted her flesh to break into spirt and her spirit to break into flesh, wanted those fine mixtures— everything that would secretly ready her for those first moments that would come.”
― Clarice Lispector, An Apprenticeship or The Book of Pleasures

“Sin embargo, a veces adivinaba. Eran manchas cósmicas que sustituían al entender.”
― Clarice Lispector, Aprendizaje o El libro de los placeres

“She was falling into a sadness without pain. It wasn't bad. It was part of life certainly. The next day she would probaly have some joy, also without the great ecstasies, just a little joy, and that wasn't bad either.”
― Clarice Lispector, An Apprenticeship or The Book of Pleasures

“…she wanted [her pupils] to know, through their Portuguese class, that the taste of a fruit is in the contact of the fruit with the palate and not in the fruit itself.”
― Clarice Lispector, An Apprenticeship or The Book of Pleasures

“Meu mistério é simples: eu não sei como estar viva.”
― Clarice Lispector, An Apprenticeship or The Book of Pleasures

“Amor será dar de presente ao outro a própria solidão? Pois é a última coisa que se pode dar de si.”
― Clarice Lispector, Aprendizaje o El libro de los placeres

“Milagros, no. Pero las coincidencias. Vivía de las coincidencias, vivía de líneas que incidían y se cruzaban y, en el cruce, formaban un leve e instantáneo punto, tan leve e instantáneo que era más bien un secreto. Apenas hablase de las coincidencias, no estaría hablando de nada.”
― Clarice Lispector, Aprendizaje o El libro de los placeres

“Lóri was feeling as if she were a dangerous tiger with an arrow buried in its flesh, and which had been circling slowly around frightened people to see who would take away its pain. And then a man, Ulisses, had felt that a wounded tiger isn’t dangerous. And approaching the beast, unafraid to touch her, he had carefully pulled out the buried arrow.”
― Clarice Lispector , An Apprenticeship or The Book of Pleasures

“And the tiger? No, neither people nor animals can say thank you for certain things. So she, the tiger, had paced languorously in front of the man, hesitated, licked one of her paws and then, since neither a word or a grunt was what mattered, gone off in silence. Lóri would never forget the help she’d received when she could only manage to stammer with fear.”
― Clarice Lispector, An Apprenticeship or The Book of Pleasures