The Slynx Quotes

“You, Book! You are the only one who won't deceive, won't attack, won't insult, won't abandon! You're quiet - but you laugh, shout, and sing: you're obedient - but you amaze, tease, and entice; you're small, but you contain countless peoples. Nothing but a handful of letters, that's all, but if you feel like it, you can turn heads, confuse, spin, cloud, make tears spring to the eyes, take away the breath, the entire soul will stir in the wind like a canvas, will rise in waves and flap its wings!”
― Tatyana Tolstaya, The Slynx

“...a book is a delicate friend, a white bird, an exquisite being, afraid of water.

Darling things! Afraid of water, of fire, They shiver in the wind. Clumsy, crude human fingers leave bruises on them that'll never fade! Never!

Some people touch books without washing their hands!

Some underline things in ink!

Some even tear pages out! ”
― Tatyana Tolstaya, The Slynx

“That's what poems are for, so you don't understand a thing.”
― Tatyana Tolstaya, The Slynx

“The world may perish, but the meat grinder is indestructible.”
― Tatyana Tolstaya, The Slynx

“I only wanted books—nothing more—only books, only words, it was never anything but words—give them to me, I don’t have any! Look, see, I don’t have any! Look, I’m naked, barefoot, I’m standing before you—nothing in my pants pockets, nothing under my shirt or under my arm! They’re not stuck in my beard! Inside—look—there aren’t any inside either—everything’s been turned inside out, there’s nothing there! Only guts! I’m hungry! I’m tormented!...
What do you mean there’s nothing? Then how can you talk and cry, what words are you frightened with, which ones do you call out in your sleep? Don’t nighttime cries roam inside you, a thudding twilight murmur, a fresh morning shriek? There they are words—don’t you recognize them? They’re writhing inside you, trying to get out! There they are! They’re yours! From wood, stone, roots, growing in strength, a dull mooing and whining in the gut is trying to get out; a piece of tongue curls, the torn nostrils swell in torment. That’s how the bewitched, beaten, and twisted snuffle with a mangy wail, their boiled white eyes locked up in closets, their vein torn out, backbone gnawed; that’s right, that’s how your pushkin writhe, or mushkin—what is in my name for you?—pushkin-mushkin, flung upon the hillock like a shaggy black idol, forever flattened by fences, up to his ears in di, the pushkin-stump, legless, six-fingered, biting his tongue, nose in his chest—and his head can’t be raised!—pushkin, tearing off the poisoned shirt, ropes, chains, caftan, noose, that wooden heaviness: let me out, let me out! What is in my name for you? Why does the wind spin in the gully? How many roads must a man walk down? What do you want, old man? Why do you trouble me? My Lord, what is the matter? Ennui, oh, Nin! Grab the inks and cry! Open the dungeon wide! I’m here! I’m innocent! I’m with you! I’m with you!”
― Tatyana Tolstaya, The Slynx

“You read, move your lips, figure out the words, and it's like you're in two places at the same time: you're sitting or lying with your legs curled up, your hand groping in the bowl, but you can see different worlds, far-off worlds that maybe never existed but still seem real. You run or sail or race in a sleigh--you're running away from someone, or you yourself have decided to attack--your heart thumps, life flies by, and it's wondrous: you can live as many different lives as there are books to read.”
― Tatyana Tolstaya, The Slynx

“А государственный подход - он всегда с вывертом: ты думаешь, надо так толковать, - ан нет, толковать надо не так, а эдак.”
― Tatyana Tolstaya, The Slynx

“Такие все раскрасавицы - хоть сейчас портки долой да шутки с ними шути.”
― Tatyana Tolstaya, The Slynx

“Golbuchiks? Golbuchiks are ashes, entrails, dung, stove smoke, clay, and they’ll all return to clay. They’re full of dirt, candle oil, droppings, dust.
You, O Book, my pure, shining precious, my golden singing promise, my dream, a distant call—
O tender specter, happy chance,
Again I heed the ancient lore,
Again with beauty rare in stance,
You beckon from the distant shore!”
― Tatyana Tolstaya, The Slynx

“Well, it means that man is the crossroads of two abysses, equally bottomless and equally inaccessible: the outer and inner worlds… Our life, young man, consists of the search for this book”
― Tatyana Tolstaya, The Slynx

“Heavenly streams poured down, piercing the snow. It looked like someone had punctured it and blackened it with stone nails. The earth showed through in some places. Last year’s rubbish surfaced on all the streets, in all the yards.”
― Tatyana Tolstaya, The Slynx

“- and even if someone told us we'd forget”
― Tatyana Tolstaya, The Slynx

“[comrades] are ashes, entrails, dung, stove smoke, clay, and they’ll all return to clay. They’re full of dirt, candle oil, droppings, dust.

You, O Book, my pure, shining precious, my golden singing promise, my dream, a distant call—

O tender specter, happy chance,
Again I heed the ancient lore,
Again with beauty rare in stance,
You beckon from the distant shore!”

You, Book! You are the only one who won't deceive, won't attack, won't insult, won't abandon! You're quiet--but you laugh, shout, and sing; you're obedient--but you amaze, tease and entice; you're small but you contain countless peoples. Nothing but a handful of letters, that's all, but if you feel like it, you can turn heads, confuse, spin, cloud, make tears spring to the eye, take away the breath, the entire soul will stir in the wind like a canvas, will rise in the waves and flap its wings! Sometimes a kind of wordless feeling tosses and turns in the chest, pounds its fists on the door, the walls: I'm suffocating! Let me out! How can you let that feeling out, all fuzzy and naked? What words ca you dress it in? We don't have any words, we don't know! Just like wild animals, or a blindlie bird, or a mermaid--no words, just a bellowing. But you open a book--and there they are, fabulous, flying words:

O city! O wind! O snowstorms and blizzards!
O azure abyss all raveled and tattered!
Here am I! I'm blameless! I'm with you forever...

...Or there's bile and sadness and bitterness. The emptiness dries your eyes out and you search for the words, and here they are:

But is the world not all alike?
From the Cabbala of Chaldaic signs
Throughout the ages, now and ever more,
To the sky where the even star shines.

The same old wisdom--born of ashes,
And in that wisdom, like our twin,
The face of longing, frailty, fear, and sin,
Stares straight across the ages at us.”
― Tatyana Tolstaya, The Slynx

“Then there's "Questions of Literature." Benedikt took a look at it: no questions at all, any answers. The issue with questions must have got lost. Too bad.”
― Tatyana Tolstaya, The Slynx

“Well, it means that man is the crossroads of two abysses, equally bottomless and equally inaccessible: the outer and inner worlds. And just as the stars, planets, comets, nebula, and other heavenly bodies move according to laws that we understand but poorly, though they are strictly preordained -- are you listening to me, Benedikt? -- so it is that moral law, all our imperfections notwithstanding, is preordained, etched with a diamond blade on the tablets of the conscience! Inscribed in fiery letters in the Book of Being. And even if this book is hidden from our myopic eyes, even if it is hidden in the valley of mists, behind seven gates, even if its pages are mixed up, its alphabet barbaric and indecipherable, it still exists, young man! It shines even at night! Our life, young man, consists of the search for this book. It is a sleepless path through the dense forest, groping our way, an unexpected acquisition!”
― Tatyana Tolstaya, The Slynx

“Let him stand, his head lowered, listening to the mice scurrying, the breeze blowing, to life hurrying somewhere, it just goes on and on, on and on, day in and day out! Day in and day out!”
― Tatyana Tolstaya, The Slynx

“Of course, if someone hurts me or my body, it's not funny. I get mad, no kidding. But that's if it's me. If it's someone else, it's funny. Why? Because me -- that's me; and him -- that's not me, it's him. But the Oldeners say: Oh, horrors!”
― Tatyana Tolstaya, The Slynx

“A meat grinder, ladies and gentlemen. With attachments. The grinder hasn't changed. Only the attachments have changed. There was no freedom back then, nor is there now.”
― Tatyana Tolstaya, The Slynx

“That's the way it always is! Like someone went and cut a tiny little sliver of boundless nature out for us, for people: here you go, Golubchiks, a little bit of sun, a bit of summer, some tulip flowers, a tiny bit of greengrass, a few small birds thrown in for spare change. And that's enough. But I'll hide all the other creatures, I'll wrap them in the night, cover them in darkness, stick them in the forest and under the ground like a sleeve, I'll bury them, starlight's enough for them, they're just fine. Let them rustle, scamper, squeak, multiply, live their own lives. And you, well, go and catch 'em if you can. You caught some? Eat your fill. And if you didn't, do the best you can.”
― Tatyana Tolstaya, The Slynx

“After all, that's how the eyes work: they just wander around and run into other people's stuff, sometimes even pop out. Legs can trip up and still walk on by, but the eye just sticks like glue, and the whole head turns with it, and thoughts get jammed like they ran straight into a column or a wall: damn, if only that were mine! Wouldn't that be... I would...! For sure I would...! You start to drool, and sometimes it runs down onto your beard. Your fingers start moving on their own, as if they were grabbing something. There's a buzzing in your chest. It's like someone's whispering in your ear: Take it! So what? No one will see!”
― Tatyana Tolstaya, The Slynx

“We stomp our feet, turn our faces to the distant heavenly Spindle, listen to tears tinkling like frozen peas, rolling into the thickets of our beards, we listen to the silence of the black izbas on black foothills, the creak of the high trees, to the whine of the blizzard, which brings in gusts -- barely audible, but still clear -- of a distant, pitiful, hungry northern wail.”
― Tatyana Tolstaya, The Slynx

“Benedikt didn't know what to think: the first fresh fear had receded, and in its place he felt glum. He should feel more awe, he thought, but somehow he didn't. Everything felt all wrong. Now, if he prostrated himself on the ground, stood on all fours, his knees bent and his hands stretched out in front and to the sides, and beat his forehead on the floor -- that would be better. That's why they thought it up. When you do that, the awe just spurts out of you like a burp”
― Tatyana Tolstaya, The Slynx

“the blizzard rages in white columns like someone being dragged under the arms with his head arched back.”
― Tatyana Tolstaya, The Slynx

“and what's inside her? A meaty darkness, squeaking bones, strings of guts, and nothing else. She laughs, she's scared, she frowns -- but does she really have any feelings? Thoughts?”
― Tatyana Tolstaya, The Slynx

“The light of knowledge will finally dispel the impenetrable darkness of your ignorance, O obstinate people, and the balm of enlightenment will flow down over your coarse manners, mores, and customs. Above and beyond everything, he says, I hope for a spiritual runnysauce. For without one, all the fruits of technological civilization will turn to murderous boomerangs in your callused hands, which, for that matter, has already happened.”
― Tatyana Tolstaya, The Slynx

“Just now, just now a little blue flame was running about and every bit of wood shone as if it were alive inside, red, clear, as if someone were breathing or wanted to say something -- and that's that... Then it's quiet, gray, dull, like something died.
And it did die. The fire, that is. Ahh, hard to figure it all out. A mystery.
And where there's mystery -- there's government service.”
― Tatyana Tolstaya, The Slynx

“Household Work Is Everybody's Business - Figure It Out Yourself.”
― Tatyana Tolstaya, The Slynx

“So most clothes are made from mouse skins, and that’s not as good. Everyone knows that you can cut something from a big piece, but you can’t keep your teeth warm with a mouse skin.”
― Tatyana Tolstaya, The Slynx

“He knew how to build a bathhouse and heat the stones. True, his father didn’t like to wash. Bears, he’d say, live just fine without any baths.”
― Tatyana Tolstaya, The Slynx

“Who, I repeat, needed you, Anna Petrovna? You were an invisible mosquito interested only in your kitchen, you never left the stove! Here’s what remains of you: how to eat, and that’s the sum total!”
― Tatyana Tolstaya, The Slynx