The Melancholy of Resistance Quotes

“Catastrophe! Of course! Last judgement! Horseshit! It's you that are the catastrophe, you're the bloody last judgement, your feet don't even touch the ground, you bunch of sleepwalkers. I wish you were dead, the lot of you. Let's make a bet,' and here he shook Nadaban by the shoulders, ‘that you don't even know what I'm talking about!! Because you don't talk, you "whisper" or "expostulate"; you don't walk down the street but "proceed feverishly"; you don't enter a place but "cross its threshold", you don't feel cold or hot, but "find yourselves shivering" or "feeling the sweat pour down you"! I haven't heard a straight word for hours, you can only mew and caterwaul; because if a hooligan throws a brick through your window you invoke the last judgement, because your brains are addled and filled up with steam, because if someone sticks your nose in shit all you do is sniff, stare and cry "sorcery!”
― László Krasznahorkai, The Melancholy of Resistance

“[...] he would see that birth and death were only two tremendous moments in an eternal waking, and his face would glow with amazement as he understood this; he would feel - gently he grasped the copper handle of the door - the warmth of the mountains, woods, rivers and valleys, would discover the hidden depths of human existence, would finally understand that the unbreakable ties that bound him to the world were not imprisoning chains and condemnation but a kind of clinging to an indestructible sense that he had a home; and he would discover the enormous joys of mutuality which embraced and animated everything: rain, wind, sun and snow, the flight of a bird, the taste of fruit, the scent of grass; and he would suspect that his anxieties and bitterness were merely cumbersome ballast required by the live roots of his past and the rising airship of his certain future, and, then - he started opening the door - he would finally know that our every moment is passed in a procession across dawns and day's-ends of the orbiting earth, across successive waves of winter and summer, threading the planets and the stars. Suitcase in hand, he stepped into the room and stood there blinking in the half-light.”
― László Krasznahorkai, The Melancholy of Resistance

“He gained height, grew thin, the hair on his temples had begun to grey, but, now as then, he had none of that useful sense of proportion, nor could he ever develop anything of the sort, which might have helped him distinguish between the continuous flux of the universe of which he constituted a part (though a necessarily fleeting part) and the passage of time, the perception of which might have led to an intuitive and wise acceptance of fate. Despite vain efforts to understand and experience what precisely his 'dear friends' wanted from each other, he confronted the slow tide of human affairs with a sad incomprehension, dispassionately and without any sense of personal involvement, for the greater part of his consciousness, the part entirely given over to wonder, had left no room for more mundane matters, and (to his mother's inordinate shame and the extreme amusement of the locals) had ever since then trapped him in a bubble of time, in one eternal, impenetrable and transparent moment. He walked, he trudged, he flitted - as his great friend once said, not entirely without point - 'blindly and tirelessly... with the incurable beauty of his personal cosmos' in his soul [...]”
― László Krasznahorkai, The Melancholy of Resistance

“[...] for it was the approaching dawn that held him in its spell, that 'promise kept each morning' that the earth, along with the town and his own person, would emerge from beneath the shadow of the night, and that the delicate glimmer of dawn would yield to the bright light of day...”
― László Krasznahorkai, The Melancholy of Resistance

“...all normal expectations went by the board and one’s daily habits were disrupted by a sense of ever-spreading all-consuming chaos which rendered the future unpredictable, the past unrecallable and ordinary life so haphazard that people simply assumed that whatever could be imagined might come to pass, that if there were only one door in a building it would no longer open, that wheat would grow head downwards into the earth not out of it, and that, since once could only note the symptoms of disintegration, the reasons for it remaining unfathomable and inconceivable, there was nothing anyone could do except to get a tenacious grip on anything that was still tangible…”
― László Krasznahorkai, The Melancholy of Resistance

“Faith, thought Eszter . . . is not a matter of believing something, but believing that somehow things could be different; in the same way, music was not the articulation of some better part of ourselves, or a reference to some notion of a better world, but a disguising of the fact of our irredeemable selves and the sorry state of the world, but no, not merely a disguising but a complete, twisted denial of such facts: it was a cure that did not work, a barbiturate that functioned as an opiate.”
― László Krasznahorkai, The Melancholy of Resistance

“While on the one hand," he said, "our most prominent scientists, the inexhaustible heroes of this perennial confusion, have finally and somewhat unfortunately extricated themselves from the metaphor of godhead, they have immediately fallen into the trap of regarding this oppressive history as some kind of triumphant march, a supernatural progress following, what they call, the victory of 'will and intellect', and though, as you know, I am no longer capable of being the least surprised by this, I must confess to you I still cannot understand why it should be the cause of such universal celebration for them that we have climbed out of the trees. Do they think it's good like this? I find nothing amusing in it. Furthermore it doesn't fit us properly: you only have to consider how long, even after thousands of years of practice, we can keep going on two legs. Half a day, my dear friend, and we shouldn't forget it.”
― László Krasznahorkai, The Melancholy of Resistance

“as he noticed the feeble ticking of his watch, he suddenly realized that he had been escaping all his life, that life had been a constant escape, escape from meaninglessness into music, from music to guilt, from guilt and self-punishment into pure ratiocination, and finally escape from that too, that it was retreat after retreat, as if his guardian angel had, in his own peculiar fashion, been steering him to the antithesis of retreat, to an almost simple-minded acceptance of things as they were, at which point he understood that there was nothing to be understood, that if there was reason in the world it far transcended his own, and that therefore it was enough to notice and observe that which he actually possessed.”
― László Krasznahorkai, The Melancholy of Resistance

“You have every cause for anxiety. We are on the threshold of a more searching, more honest, more open society.”
― László Krasznahorkai, The Melancholy of Resistance

“To be more accurate, Eszter continued, it was only a shadow in the mirror, a mirror where the image and the mirror wholly coincided though the shadow nevertheless tried to separate them, to separate two things that had from eternity been the same and could not be separated or cut into two, thereby losing the weightless delight of being swept along with it, substituting, he thought as he stepped away from the drawing-room window, a solid eternity purchased with knowledge for the sweet song of participating in eternity, a song so airy it was lighter than a feather.”
― László Krasznahorkai, The Melancholy of Resistance

“He looked tired, exhausted even, but it was as if this were the specific thing that had exhausted him, not ordinary everyday matters but one single all-consuming care; it was obviously a fatigue born out of decades of vigilance, exhaustion owing to the knowledge that any moment he might be killed by that immeasurable weight of fat.”
― László Krasznahorkai, The Melancholy of Resistance

“The unchained workers of decay were waiting in a dormant state for the necessary conditions to be established, as soon enough they would be, when they might recommence their interrupted struggle, that predetermined, merciless assault in the course of which they would dismantle whatever had been alive once and once only, reducing it into tiny insignificant pieces under the eternally silent cover of death.”
― László Krasznahorkai, The Melancholy of Resistance

“Everything was there, it is simply that there was no clerk capable of making an inventory of all the constituents; but the realm that existed once—once and once only—had disappeared for ever, ground into infinitesimal pieces by the endless momentum of chaos within which crystals of order survived, the chaos that consisted of an indifferent and unstoppable traffic between things. It ground the empire into carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and sulphur, it took its delicate fibres and unstitched them till they were dispersed and had ceased to exist, because they had been consumed by the force of some incomprehensibly distant edict, which must also consume this book, here, now, at the full stop, after the last word.”
― László Krasznahorkai, The Melancholy of Resistance

“He heard hundreds of exhausted feet scraping the ground behind him, he saw the stray cats at his own feet as they scattered in fear before the silently advancing mass of raised iron stakes, but he felt nothing except the weight of the hand on his shoulder steering him through the army of fur caps and heavy boots. Don't be afraid, the other man repeated. Valuska gave a quick nod and glanced up at the sky. He glanced up and suddenly had the sensation that the sky wasn't where it was supposed to be; terrified, he looked up again and confirmed the fact that there was indeed nothing there, so he bowed his head and surrendered to the fur caps and boots, realizing that it was no use to search because what he sought was lost, swallowed up by this coming together of forces, of details, of this earth, this marching.”
― László Krasznahorkai, The Melancholy of Resistance

“The only revolutionary feeling he was aware of, or so he considered while standing in the doorway, was pride, his own pride, a pride that did not allow him to understand that there was no qualitative difference between things, a presumptuous over-confidence which condemned him to ultimate disillusion, for to live according to the spirit of qualitative difference requires superhuman qualities.”
― László Krasznahorkai, The Melancholy of Resistance

“«Та який він почтальйон! — заперечив тому менший. - Дурак він, папа казав. — Потім знову повернувся до прибульця і підозріливо обміряв його. - А ти... справжній дурак?» «Е, ні! - похитав головою Валушка і підвівся. - Ніякий я не дурак, можеш сам переконатися, якщо глянеш». «Жалко, — скопилив губу малий. — Я хотів би бути дураком і добряче вилаятися королю, що його країна — відстій».”
― Ласло Краснагоркаї, The Melancholy of Resistance

“Естер без перебільшення зіткнувся в ній зі «слабоумством», поглибленим до меж хворобливої жаги перемоги, і «дешевим розрахунком», втіленим у якесь неотесане хуторянство, такою глибоко пекельною сумішшю грубості, нечулості, шкідницької ненависті й буйного хамства, проти якого він десятиліттями виявлявся безсилим.”
― Ласло Краснагоркаї, The Melancholy of Resistance

“Зі самого початку, коли він, підвівши погляд з музикознавчих нотаток, усвідомив свій статус одруженого, ретельніше роздивившись свою партнерку, для нього стало нерозв'язним завданням оминати у звертанні приголомшливе «фейське» імʼя своєї тлустої жони («Вона виглядає, — роздумував він в ту пору, — як мішок картоплі, не називати ж її Тюндею!»), згодом, однак, називання вже не створювало таких труднощів, хоч різноманітні альтернативні імена він ніколи не вимовляв уголос. Насправді набагато приголомшливішим за «убивчу зовнішність» його половинки, яка ідеально гармоніювала з якістю неописанного хору, котрим вона орудувала, виявилося усвідомлення внутрішньої організації цього адамового ребра, бо на превелике подивування він одружився зі справдешнім солдатом, якому відомий лише один ритм — маршовий, і єдина мелодія — тривоги.”
― Ласло Краснагоркаї, The Melancholy of Resistance

“Impulsada por los malos presentimientos, poco a poco empezó a sentirse como si caminara por una pesadilla;”
― László Krasznahorkai, Melancolía de la resistencia

“Having been granted a glimpse into the true nature of relationships, having just now experienced the adventure of comprehending and realizing, having recovered from the extraordinary effort of recognizing in a very unlikely manner in which he had arrived at the decisive moment of resignation, the happy little glimmer on the head of the nail conjured nothing more or less than a mysterious, unforgettable sensation that had surprised him on his way home, that despite the apparently insufferable condition of the town, he was glad simply to be alive, glad that he was breathing, that Valuska would soon be here beside him, glad of the warm glow of the fire in the drawing room and the house, which henceforth would be a real home, his home where the tiniest thing possessed some significance, and so he put the hammer down on the floor, divested himself of Mrs Harrer's apron and hung it on the hook in the kitchen and returned to the drawing room so he could rest a little before lighting a fire in Vakuska's room. It was a mysterious sensation but one that was born of simplicity rather than complexity: everything about him regained its original significance in the most natural way, the window became a window you could look out again, the fire became a fire which gave out heat, and the drawing room ceased to be a refuge from the 'all-consuming devastation' in much the same way as the outside world was no longer the scene of 'insufferable torture'.”
― László Krasznahorkai, The Melancholy of Resistance

“He was convinced that Valuska's cosmos had no relation whatsoever to the real one; it was, he thought, an image, something remembered from childhood perhaps, only an image, of some once-glimpsed universal order, an order that had become a personal domain, clearly a luminous landscape that could never be lost, a pure religion which assumed that there was or might once have been a heavenly mechanism 'driven be some hidden motor of enchantment and innocent dreaming'. While the local community, 'given its natural inclination', regarded Valuska as no more than an idiot, he, for his part, was in no doubt (though he only became aware of this once Valuska took on the role of his personal meal-provider and general help) that this apparently crazy wanderer on the highways of his own transparent galaxy, with his incorruptibility and universal, if embarrassing, generosity of spirit, was indeed 'proof that, despite the highly corrosive forces of decadence in the present age, angels nevertheless did exist'.”
― László Krasznahorkai, The Melancholy of Resistance

“Apple cores, bits of old boots, watch-straps, overcoat buttons, rusted keys, everything, he coolly noted, that man may leave his mark by, was here, though it wasn’t so much this ‘icy museum of pointless existence’ that astonished him (for there was nothing remotely new about the particular range of exhibits), but the way this slippery mass snaking between the houses, like a pale reflection of the sky, illuminated everything with its unearthly, dull, silvery phosphorescence.”
― László Krasznahorkai, The Melancholy of Resistance

“İnanç, diye düşündü Eszter Bey, aslında kendi aptallığını irdelerken, aslında bir şeye inanmak değil, bunların böyle olmadığına inanmaktı ve müzik de, daha iyi olan benliğimizi ya da daha iyi bir dünyayı tanımanın aracı değil, kurtarılması mümkün olmayan benliğimizi ve acınası bir dünyayı gizlemenin ve hatta ortadan yok etmenin çılgınca bir yöntemiydi.”
― László Krasznahorkai, The Melancholy of Resistance

“Tam o anda tüm olan biteni neyin harekete geçirdiğini kavradı, varoluşun itici gücünün mecburiyet olduğunu, itici gücün motivasyonu doğurduğunu, motivasyonun ise belirlenmiş ilişkiler içinde saldırgan bir katılımı sağladığını, varlığımızın bulunduğu bu katılım noktasından, araştırmacı reflekslerinin önceden belirlenmiş dizisini kullanarak kendisi için faydalı olanı bulmaya çabaladığı noktada, varlığın tümlüğünün aslında bu arzulanan ilişkinin gerçekte var olup olmamasına bağlı olduğunu, tüm bunların sabrın yeterliliğine, mücadelenin incelikli noktalarına ve tesadüflerine göre şekillendiği ve başarılı hareketin, benliksiz varlığın, tam deneme yanılma niteliği taşıdığını kavradı.”
― László Krasznahorkai, The Melancholy of Resistance

“Tam o anda tüm olan biteni neyin harekete geçirdiğini kavradı, varoluşun itici gücünün mecburiter olduğunu, itici gücün motivasyonu doğurduğunu, motivasyonun ise belirlenmiş ilişkiler içinde saldırgan bir katılımı sağladığını, varlığımızın bulunduğu bu katılım noktasından, araştırmacı reflekslerinin önceden belirlenmiş dizisini kullanarak kendisi için faydalı olanı bulmaya çabaladığı noktada, varlığın tümlüğünün aslında bu arzulanan ilişkinin gerçekte var olup olmamasına bağlı olduğunu, tüm bunların sabrın yeterliliğine, mücadelenin incelikli noktalarına ve tesadüflerine göre şekillendiği ve başarılı hareketin, benliksiz varlığın, tam deneme yanılma niteliği taşıdığını kavradı.”
― László Krasznahorkai, The Melancholy of Resistance

“Caddedeki eve geldiğinde daha fazla dayanamayacağına ve dinlenmesi gerektiğine karar vererek odasına kapanmıştı. Dinlenecek ve tek saniyeyi bile boşa harcamamak için bir daha asla kalkmayacaktı: O anda, yatağına uzandığı saniyede, artık "salaklaşmanın, aptallaşmanın, odunlaşmanın, dangalaklaşmanın, terbiyesizliğin, zevksizliğin, kabalığın, cehaletin, bilgisizliğin, ve genel seviyesizliğin tonlarca anısının yorgunluğu"nu atmak için, önünde daha bir elli yıl olsa dinlenmesinin yeterli olmayacağını düşünmüştü.”
― László Krasznahorkai, The Melancholy of Resistance

“Ve dünyanın efendisi, sonsuz gizemini korurken kendisini eğlendirmek için nasıl da garip canlılar yaratıyordu!”
― László Krasznahorkai, The Melancholy of Resistance

“Çünkü dünyanın kendisini katbekat aştığını biliyor, kendisinin de aralarında olduğu, o sessiz yuvalarında onurluluk ve ağırbaşlılığın ufak vahasında yaşayanların, dışarıda neler olup bittiğini korkudan titreyerek düşündükleri sırada, kirli sakallının tüm barbar soyunun, o yoldan çıkmış süprüntüler sürüsünün, içgüdüsel bir güvenle dizginleri ele geçireceğini de açıkça görebiliyordu.”
― László Krasznahorkai, The Melancholy of Resistance

“Nel fisico era cresciuto, dimagrito, le tempie ormai cominciavano a ingrigirsi, ma per il bambino di allora, o per l’uomo di oggi, tutte le cose che servono su questa terra non significavano nulla, così come non aveva ancora imparato a conciliare il corso immutabile dell’universo di cui lui stesso era parte (una parte molto effimera) con la nozione filosofica del tempo che passa: in pratica non sapeva bene cosa fosse il futuro. Assisteva agli eventi umani che scorrevano lenti intorno a lui senza mostrare passioni o coinvolgimento personale, le sue effettive difficoltà intellettive erano sempre venate da una malinconica tristezza, perché nonostante gli sforzi, non riusciva a capire, e di conseguenza a vivere, come i cari amici che conosceva: il suo cervello, preda di un meravigliato stupore, era scollegato dalle normali faccende terrene (con terribile vergogna della madre, e massimo divertimento della gente locale), sembrava vivere nell’invulnerabilità di un istante eterno, come in una bolla di sapone che non sarebbe mai scoppiata.”
― László Krasznahorkai, The Melancholy of Resistance

“…era alquanto facilitato nel sentire l’umana nullità rispetto al vertiginoso infinito della volta celeste, si muoveva libero nello spazio immenso e imperscrutabile come se quello fosse il suo vero mondo, in questo, prigioniero della sua libertà, non riusciva a trovare posto, soffocato dall’incommensurabile ristrettezza di tale “desolante aridità”…”
― László Krasznahorkai, The Melancholy of Resistance