The Secret of the Origin Quotes

“. Because life is this: an enigma that cannot be solved, but must be lived. And I do not need to understand its origin in order to love it. I love it just as it is: full of contradictions, of questions without answers, of pain and vertigo, of sudden flashes of grace. I love it because it is the only place where we can meet, lose each other, find each other again. I love it because, despite everything, it keeps calling us.”
― Pierenrico Gottero, The Secret of the Origin: Final Journey to the Middle Lands

“For a long time I believed happiness was a state — a destination, a summit you reach after climbing the mountain. I thought that once I got there, everything would become clear, stable, complete. But over time I’ve understood that it isn’t like that. Happiness isn’t a place you reach, it’s a way of seeing. It’s not where you arrive, but how you walk. Now it feels more like a fragile balance, a breath suspended between what you have and what you dream of, between what you lose and what you learn to embrace. It’s like a delicate melody: if you play it too loudly, it breaks; if you neglect it, it fades away.”
― Pierenrico Gottero, The Secret of the Origin: Final Journey to the Middle Lands

“....a tirade against Paolo Sorrentino’s film The Great Beauty........It struck me.
But what struck me even more was what happened a few months later, when I finally saw the film and, at the same time, got to know him better. And I realized he was exactly one of the characters Sorrentino had portrayed: obsessed with appearances, caught up in social rituals, incapable of deep desire. A man tired on the inside, moving through the world like an actor on a stage with no more script.

That’s when I understood: it wasn’t the film that had disturbed him.
It was the reflection it had given him.
He had recognized himself — and that had frightened him.

That kind of fear that makes you say: “How dare you judge me?” when in reality, no one has judged you.
You’ve simply seen yourself.
And sometimes, seeing ourselves is far more unsettling than being seen.”
― Pierenrico Gottero, The Island of What Could Have Been: Back to the Middle Lands

“It was then that I understood something essential: once a book is published, it no longer belongs to you.
It takes on a life of its own.
It begins to walk on its own legs, like a child who has chosen a direction. And most of all, no reader simply reads it — they see themselves reflected in it. And what they see — or what they refuse to see — depends far more on them than on you.”
― Pierenrico Gottero, The Island of What Could Have Been: Back to the Middle Lands

“Still.
Two bare souls, no more masks or armor.
Two lives that had loved each other in the purest point of time.
And now saw each other again.
Perhaps for the last time.
But in their truest form.”
― Pierenrico Gottero, The Island of What Could Have Been: Back to the Middle Lands