The Besieged City Quotes

“Upon the rubble horses would reappear announcing the rebirth of the old reality, their backs without riders. Because thus it had always been. Until a few men would tie them to wagons, once again erecting a city that they wouldn't understand, once again building, with innocent skill, the things. And then once more they'd need a pointing finger to give them their old names.”
― Clarice Lispector, The Besieged City

“In heaven, learning is seeing; On earth, remembering. — Pindar”
― Clarice Lispector, The Besieged City

“But without anyone's having forced her to choose the sacrifice, was she losing right then her youth through the symbol of youth? and life through the shape of life, her single hand pointing.”
― Clarice Lispector, The Besieged City

“The girl and a horse represented the two races of builders that had initiated the tradition of the future metropolis, both could figure on its coat of arms. The measly function of the girl in her time was an archaic function that is reborn every time a town is formed, her history formed with effort the spirit of a city.”
― Clarice Lispector, The Besieged City

“The struggle to reach reality—that’s the main objective of this creature who tries, in every way, to cling to whatever exists by means of a total vision of things. I meant to make clear too the way vision—the way of seeing, the viewpoint—alters reality, constructing it. A house is not only constructed with stones, cement etc. A man’s way of looking constructs it too.”
― Clarice Lispector, The Besieged City

“Marine beings, when not affixed to the sea floor, adapt to a fluctuating or pelagic life,” Perseu studied on the afternoon of May 15, 192.
Heroic and empty, the citizen kept standing beside the open window. But in fact he could never transmit to anyone the extent to which he was harmonious, and even if he spoke, no word could convey the graciousness of his appearance: his extreme harmony was simply evident.
“Pelagic animals reproduce with profusion,” he said with hollow luminosity. Blind and glorious—that was all that could be known of him. . . .
“They feed on basic microvegetation, infusorials, etc.”
“Etc.!” he repeated brilliant, unconquerable. . . .
“This discoidal animal is formed according to the symmetry based on the number 4.”
That’s what it said! And the sun beat down on the dusty page: a cockroach was even climbing up the house across the street. . . . Then the boy said something as lustrous as a scarab:
“Pelagic beings reproduce with extraordinary profusion,” he finally exclaimed from memory.”
― Clarice Lispector, A Cidade Sitiada