Stone Upon Stone Quotes

“I never did as much thinking in my whole life as I did during those two years in the hospital. When I got out I felt as if my head was twice as heavy. It kept buzzing like a beehive. But you couldn’t not think. Even if you didn’t want to, your thoughts thought themselves on their own. If you shooed them out of your head they just flew around you like a flock of crows driven out of a poplar tree. Cawing and squawking. There was no way you could stop them, even though they were your thoughts.”
― Wiesław Myśliwski, Stone Upon Stone

“Słowa same poprowadzą. Słowa wszystko na wierzch wywleką. Słowa i z najgłębszej głębi wydrą, co gdzieś boli i skowycze. Słowa krwi upuszczą i od razu lżej się robi.”
― Wiesław Myśliwski, Stone Upon Stone

“Ale są nieraz takie chwile, że porządnych słów trza by nie wiadomo ile powiedzieć, a i tak się nie zrównają choćby z jedną kurwą, bo jakby puste, ślepe i kulawe były. I za głupie na to wszystko, choć porządne.”
― Wiesław Myśliwski, Stone Upon Stone

“Een slampamper, want dat was hij, maar zonder kat is het maar leeg in huis, als zonder hond op het erf, zonder koeien en paarden in de wei, of zonder vogels aan de hemel. Als het avond wordt, doet het de mens goed als er ergens iets levends ligt te spinnen.
[...]
Maar hoe zou ik mijn eigen kat niet herkennen? Bruinig grijs, groene ogen, de staart voor de helft wit. Niemand in het dorp had er zo een. Aaide ik hem over zijn rug, dan was het of ik door de zon verwarmd gras aaide.”
― Wieslaw Mysliwski, Steen op steen

“Like they say, he could knock over mountains and turn back rivers. At attention the heart beats slower and the mind thinks straighter. Who knows, maybe at attention you could even die without regrets. I sometimes wonder how so much power can fit in a single word like that. Whoever thought up that word must have known life through and through. Because there are times when you have no other choice than to say to your own self, attention! If I died they were forbidden the same to shed a tear, they had to just stand at attention. At most someone could play a song for me on the mouth organ. “Stone upon stone, on stone a stone.” Because if I had to choose only one tune to take with me to the next world, that would be the one. Of all the tunes in all my life. Sometimes I regret it didn’t happen that way. I’d have had it all over and done with, I wouldn’t have had to struggle with everything like I do now.”
― Wiesław Myśliwski, Stone Upon Stone

“It was just, Ten-shun! Because sometimes tears make bigger holes than bullets. No one dared so much as let their stomach rumble, even if they hadn’t had a bite to eat in three days and were hungrier than during Lent. Or even swallow loud. Or even sniff. And no one was allowed to whisper amen. I’d just look at everyone’s eyes to make sure none of them were wet. Because in my command, attention didn’t just mean feet together and hands at your buttocks. It meant attention in your mind, and standing up straight in your soul. Everything was at attention. I had a voice like a bell, I sang bass in the church choir and sometimes the priest even had to ask me to sing quieter, our church isn’t that big, you don’t want the Lord God to go deaf, do you? Remember you’re singing right in his ear. He doesn’t like it to be too loud, he even prefers it when someone’s feeling the hymn more than singing it, just like he prefers humbler people over greater people.”
― Wiesław Myśliwski, Stone Upon Stone

“She wasn't planning on being a saint, right? Why would she? She'd get old and then regret it. What pleasure was there in being a saint? All you'd do is be in a picture on the church wall, or they'd hand you out during the priest's Christmastime visit or sell you at church fairs, or you'd have your name in the calendar. But you have to be a big-time saint for that. You'd have to kick another saint off, because there's already four or five of them for every day. Even the most saintly ones are going to get squeezed out soon. It's not worth the effort. On top of everything else, you never know if it's only down here you're considered a saint, but afterwards you're actually going to go roast in hell. How can we know what happens afterwards?”
― Wiesław Myśliwski, Stone Upon Stone

“But it was iron after all, and when you ask iron a question it doesn't answer.”
― Wiesław Myśliwski, Stone Upon Stone