The Opposing Shore Quotes

“And what can still delight an inert stone except to become, once more, the bed of a raging torrent?”
― Julien Gracq, The Opposing Shore

“Solitude and boredom. It's what happens to something that's felt itself gathered together too long, too...exclusively. The vacuum that occurs at its frontiers--a kind of numbness which is generated on its torpid surface as if it had lost the sense of touch--lost contact.”
― Julien Gracq, The Opposing Shore

“There are cities that are damned for some people by the mere fact that they seem created to close off the distances that are the only reason for living.”
― Julien Gracq, The Opposing Shore

“but the force of traditions, as in all crumbling empires, grows proportionately with the explicit revelation, in the machinery of government and commerce alike, of the preponderant action of all principles of inertia...”
― Julien Gracq, The Opposing Shore

“the very air I breathed in these empty, chilly halls ...seemed vaguely impregnated with a more volatile essence, the kind of which it is expressively said that they exist in the state of scents, traces which escape attention once they have roused it, and in whose subtle distillation time--a time which instead of devouring itself seemed here to decant and thicken itself like the lees of old wine, with that almost spiritual succulence by which certain noble vintages make the years themselves explode on the tongue--counted for almost everything.”
― Julien Gracq, The Opposing Shore

“I felt in complicity with the tendency of this country to absolute desolation.”
― Julien Gracq, The Opposing Shore

“La hoja es la belleza del árbol -me repetía- y el derroche profuso y deslumbrante de su vida.”
― Julien Gracq, The Opposing Shore

“... Size bir devlet sırrı vereceğim. İcracılara verilmesi pek doğru olmayan bir sır ... " diye sürdürdü. "Bir zaaf sırrı.
Kötü bir duruma yol açan beklenmedik bir olay baş gösterdiğinde, her şeyin kendisiyle başlamış olduğu kişi önce yerinde tutulur
her zaman.”
― Julien Gracq, The Opposing Shore

“Nerede kaldı diplomasinin 'öngörmek için bilmek,
gereğini yapmak için de öngörmek' kuralı?
Hareketsizliğin hafiflikten bir farkı var mı?”
― Julien Gracq, The Opposing Shore

“[Original text in French] Giovanni n'avait pas menti. Sagra était une merveille baroque, une collision improbable et inquiétante de la nature et de l'art.

[My translation to English] Giovanni hadn't lied. Sagra was a Baroque wonder, an unlikely and disturbing collision between Nature and Arts.

[My translation to Spanish] Giovanni no había mentido. Sagra era una maravilla barroca, una colisión improbable e inquitante de la naturaleza con el arte.”
― Julien Gracq, The Opposing Shore