Budapeste Quotes

“(Hungarian...) the only tongue the devil respects.”
― Chico Buarque, Budapeste

“Ali por uns segundos tive a sensação de haver desembarcado em país de língua desconhecida, o que para mim era sempre uma sensação boa, era como se a vida fosse partir do zero.”
― Chico Buarque, Budapeste

“O Danúbio, pensei, era o Danúbio mas não era azul, era amarelo, a cidade toda era amarela, os telhados, o asfalto, os parques, engraçado isso, uma cidade amarela, eu pensava que Budapeste fosse cinzenta, mas Budapeste era amarela.”
― Chico Buarque, Budapeste

“I strove to speak such fastidious Hungarian that perhaps for this very reason it sometimes rang false. Perhaps a word here or there, pronounced with excessive zeal, stood out like a glass eye that was more realistic than the good eye.”
― Chico Buarque, Budapeste

“For an immigrant, an accent may be a form of vengeance, a way of insulting the language that constrains him. In the language he does not esteem, he will mumble only the words necessary to his work and daily life, always the same words, not one more. And even these he shall forget at the end of his life, to return to the vocabulary of childhood. Just as the names of those around us are forgotten when the memory begins to lose water, as a swimming pool slowly drains away, as yesterday is forgotten while our deepest memories remain. But for one who had adopted a foreign tongue as if hand-picking his own mother, for one who had sought out and loved every last one of its words, the persistence of an accent was an unfair punishment.”
― Chico Buarque, Budapeste

“It should be against the law to mock someone who tries his luck in a foreign language.”
― Chico Buarque, Budapeste

“Houve um tempo em que, se tivesse de optar entre duas cegueiras, escolheria ser cego ao esplendor do mar, às montanhas, ao pôr-do-sol do Rio de Janeiro, para ter olhos de ler o que há de belo, em letras negras sobre fundo branco.”
― Chico Buarque, Budapeste

“Busquei abrigo num quiosque, e me perguntei se algum dia saberia viver longe do mar, em cidade que não terminasse assim num acidente,
mas agonizando para todos os lados.”
― Chico Buarque, Budapeste

“Perhaps, in order to forget those words, I needed to forget the actual language in which they had been spoken, just as we move from a house that reminds us of the dead. Perhaps it was possible to replace one language with another in my head, little by little, discarding a word for every word acquired. For a time, my head would be like a house undergoing renovations, with new words being hoisted up through one ear and the rubble being lowered down through the other. I would of course be saddened to see so many beautiful words, wainscoting, going to waste all because of a few disastrously employed pieces. On the other hand, however, once free of my entire Latin vocabulary, with Kriska's help I would learn to speak Magyar flawlessly.”
― Chico Buarque, Budapeste

“Custei a aprender que para conhecer uma cidade, melhor que percorrê-la em ônibus de dois andares é se fechar num aposento dentro dela. Não é fácil, e eu sabia que entrar em Budapeste não seria fácil.”
― Chico Buarque, Budapeste

“Mas fiquei com o zil na cabeça, é uma boa palavra, zil, muito melhor que campainha.

Eu logo a esqueceria, como esquecera os haicais decorados no Japão, os provérbios árabes, o Otchi Tchiornie que cantava em russo, de cada país eu levo assim uma graça, um suvenir volátil. Tenho esse ouvido infantil que pega e larga as línguas com facilidade, se perseverasse poderia aprender o grego, o coreano, até o vasconço. Mas o húngaro, nunca sonhara aprender.”
― Chico Buarque, Budapeste