The Tenant Quotes

“Look at me, I'm not worthy of your anger, I'm nothing but a dumb animal who can't prevent the noisy symptoms of his decay, so don't waste your time with me, don't dirty your hands by hitting me, just try to put up with the fact that I exist. I'm not asking you to like me, I know that's impossible, because I'm not likeable, but at least do me the kindness of despising me enough to ignore me”
― Roland Topor, The Tenant

“Martians – they were all Martians. But they were ashamed of it, and so they tried to conceal it. They had determined, once and for all, that their monstrous disproportions were, in reality, true proportion, and their inconceivable ugliness was beauty. They were strangers on this planet, but they refused to admit it. They played at being perfectly at home. He caught a glimpse of his own reflection in a shop window. He was no different. Identical, exactly the same likeness as that of the monsters. He belonged to their species, but for some unknown reason he had been banished from their company. They had no confidence in him. All they wanted from him was obedience to their incongruous rules and their ridiculous laws. Ridiculous only to him, because he could never fathom their intricacy and their subtlety.”
― Roland Topor, The Tenant

“Death was the Earth. Having sprung from her, the budding forms of life attempted to liberate themselves from her embrace. They set their sights on the free and open spaces. Death let them do as they wished, because she was very partial to the idea of life. She contented herself with keeping a watchful eye on her flock, and when she felt that they were fully ripe she devoured them up as if they were so many morsels of sugar. The she lay back and slowly digested the nourishment that would replenish her womb, happy and satiated as a pampered cat.”
― Roland Topor, The Tenant

“Lying in bed with his eyes open, he searched the shadows around him, trying to find some steadying, reassuring objects. But the reality was at least as threatening as the nightmares. Having swallowed up all of the familiar shapes of the furniture, the darkness took on the aspect of some unearthly challenge: within this nothingness something monstrous and unknown was surely being spawned. The room had become a kind of breeding ground for monsters.”
― Roland Topor, The Tenant

“Trelkovsky had never undestood why people insisted on comparing the noise of birds to music. Birds don't sing, they scream. And in the morning they scream in chorus.”
― Roland Topor, The Tenant

“When he lifted the cover of one of the trash cans, before emptying the contents of his own pail into it, he was always astonished by its neatness and order. His own trash was the most indecent collection in the entire building. Repugnant and despicable. There was no resemblance between it and the honest, day-to-day trash of the other tenants. That had a solid, respectable appearance, and his did not.”
― Roland Topor, The Tenant

“...look at me, I'm not worthy of your anger, I'm nothing but a dumb animal who can't prevent the noisy symptoms of his decay, so don't waste your time with me, don't dirty your hands by hitting me, just try to put up with the fact that I exist.
I'm not asking you to like me, I know that that's impossible, because I'm not likeable, but at least do me the kindness of despising me enough to ignore me.”
― Roland Topor, The Tenant

“He was perfectly conscious of the absurdity of his behaviour, but he was incapable of changing it. This absurdity was an essential part of him. It was probably the most basic element of his personality.”
― Roland Topor, The Tenant

“Already, he was not entirely Trelkovsky any more. But what was Trelkovsky? How could he learn the answer to that? He had to discover himself, so that he could be sure he would not wander from the right path. But how?”
― Roland Topor, The Tenant

“His stomach turned inside out, like a glove, and he vomited.
   It wasn't disagreeable at all. Almost like a liberation, in fact. A kind of suicide, in a way. These particles of matter that showered from his mouth, after he had thought them consumed and digested, did not disgust him. No, he was completely indifferent to them; and to everything else, for that matter. It was only when he vomited that he could be indifferent even to life itself.”
― Roland Topor, The Tenant

“He was perfectly conscious of the absurdity of his behavior, but he was incapable of changing it. This absurdity was an essential part of him. It was probably the most basic element of his personality.”
― Roland Topor, The Tenant

“He had lived so many years in this room that he still could not quite grasp the idea that now it was finished. He would never again see this place which had been the very center of his life. Others would come into it, destroy the order of things that existed now, transform these four walls into something he would not even recognize, and kill off forever any lingering assumption that a certain Monsieur Trelkovsky had lived here before. Unceremoniously, from one day to the next, he would have vanished.”
― Roland Topor, The Tenant

“He considered both doctors and nurses as monsters of insensitivity, in spite of the fact that he admired their devotion to duty.”
― Roland Topor, The Tenant

“He strolled through the streets unhurriedly, observing the passing crowds. The ranks of faces filed steadily, almost rhythmically, before him, as if their owners were standing on some kind of endless, moving sidewalk. Faces with the great bulging eyes of toads; pinched and wary faces of disillusioned men; round, soft faces of abnormal children; bull necks, fishlike noses, ferret teeth. Half closing his eyes, he imagined that they were really all one face, shifting and changing like the patterns of a kaleidoscope.”
― Roland Topor, The Tenant

“«В какой именно момент, — задавался вопросом Трелковский, — человек перестает быть личностью, которой он сам себя и все окружающие считают? Предположим, мне должны ампутировать руку. Я говорю: я и моя рука. Если же должны отрезать обе руки, я говорю: я и две мои руки.
Если бы это были ноги, то было бы то же самое: я и мои ноги. Если бы им пришлось удалить у меня желудок, печень, почки — если бы такое оказалось возможным, — я бы говорил то же самое: я и мои органы. Но если бы они отрезали мне голову, что бы я сказал в таком случае? Я и мое тело, или я и моя голова? По какому же праву голова, которая даже не является членом организма, вроде руки или ноги, претендует на право говорить от моего имени, говорить «я»?
Только потому, что в ней находятся мозги? Но существуют такие создания, как личинки, черви и прочие подобные творения природы, у которых вообще нет мозга. Как быть в отношении их? Или у них тоже где–то есть мозг, который способен сказать: я и мое тело?»”
― Roland Topor, The Tenant

“Κάτω τα χέρια, δολοφόνε!"
Ξεφύσηξε σαν θυμωμένος γάτος, κι ύστερα τον έφτυσε καταπρόσωπο. Ο γείτονας του άφησε το πόδι κι έπιασε να σκουπίζεται με λύσσα.
"Όσο το τρίβετε, τόσο πιο πολύ λεκιάζεστε. Ποιανού του αρέσει το αίμα; Πώς; Κανενός; Κι όμως, τα φιλέτα σας τα θέλετε "σενιάν", τρελαίνεστε για λαγό στιφάδο "με το αίμα του" και για χωριάτικο λουκάνικο, λατρεύετε το αίμα του Κυρίου—κάνω λάθος; Γιατί, λοιπόν, δε θέλετε το αιματάκι του Τρελκόφσκι;”
― Roland Topor, The Tenant

“Αμα μου κόψεις το κεφάλι, τι θα πω; "Εγώ και το σώμα μου;" ή "Εγώ και το κεφάλι μου;" Με ποιο δικαίωμα το κεφάλι, που είναι κι αυτό ένα μέλος όπως όλα τ' άλλα, θα οικειοποιόταν τον τίτλο του "εγώ";”
― Roland Topor, The Tenant

“Το στομάχι του γύρισε σαν γάντι, και ξέρασε. Δεν ήταν δυσάρεστο. Μια ανακούφιση. Κάτι σαν αυτοκτονία. Αυτά τα πράγματα που έβγαιναν απ' το στόμα του, αφού τα 'χε καταχωνίασει, δεν του προκαλούσαν αηδία, όχι· του ήταν τελείως αδιάφορα, όπως άλλωστε και ο ίδιος του ο εαυτός.”
― Roland Topor, The Tenant