By Night in Chile Quotes

“As time goes by, as time goes by, the whip-crack of the years, the precipice of illusions, the ravine that swallows up all human endeavour except the struggle to survive.”
― Roberto Bolaño, By Night in Chile

“And then the storm of shit begins.”
― Roberto Bolaño, By Night in Chile

“One has a moral obligation to take responsibility for one’s actions, and that includes one’s words and silences, yes, one’s silences, because silences rise to heaven too, and God hears them, and only God understands and judges them, so one must be very careful with one’s silences.”
― Roberto Bolaño, By Night in Chile

“I paid the taxi driver, got out with my suitcase, surveyed my surroundings, and just as I was turning to ask the driver something or get back into the taxi and return forthwith to Chillán and then to Santiago, it sped off without warning, as if the somewhat ominous solitude of the place had unleashed atavistic fears in the driver's mind. For a moment I too was afraid. I must have been a sorry sight standing there helplessly with my suitcase from the seminary, holding a copy of Farewell's Anthology in one hand. Some birds flew out from behind a clump of trees. They seemed to be screaming the name of that forsaken village, Querquén, but they also seemed to be enquiring who: quién, quién, quién. I said a hasty prayer and headed for a wooden bench, there to recover a composure more in keeping with what I was, or what at the time I considered myself to be. Our Lady, do not abandon your servant, I murmured, while the black birds, about twenty-five centimetres in length, cried quién, quién, quién. Our Lady of Lourdes, do not abandon your poor priest, I murmured, while other birds, about ten centimetres long, brown in colour, or brownish, rather, with white breasts, called out, but not as loudly, quién, quién, quién, Our Lady of Suffering, Our Lady of Insight, Our Lady of Poetry, do not leave your devoted subject at the mercy of the elements, I murmured, while several tiny birds, magenta, black, fuchsia, yellow and blue in colour, wailed quién, quién, quién, at which point a cold wind sprang up suddenly, chilling me to the bone.”
― Roberto Bolaño, By Night in Chile

“I am dying now, but I still have many things to say.”
― Roberto Bolaño, By Night in Chile

“life is a succession of misunderstandings, leading us on to the final truth, the only truth.”
― Roberto Bolaño, By Night in Chile

“I remember scrutinizing his face. I remember drinking his face down to the last drop, trying to elucidate the character, the psychology of such an individual. And yet the only thing about him that has remained is my memory of his ugliness.”
― Roberto Bolaño, By Night in Chile

“It’s good to love. It’s bad to be impressionable.”
― Roberto Bolaño, By Night in Chile

“...all horrors are dulled by routine.”
― Roberto Bolaño, By Night in Chile

“كنت في سلامٍ مع نفسي ، صامتْ وفي سلام .”
― Roberto Bolaño , By Night in Chile

“«No soy un nacionalista exacerbado, sin embargo siento un amor auténtico por mi país. Chile, Chile. ¿Cómo has podido cambiar tanto?, le decía a veces, asomado a mi ventana abierta, mirando el reverbero de Santiago en la lejanía. ¿Qué te han hecho? ¿Se han vuelto locos los chilenos? ¿Quién tiene la culpa? Y otras veces, mientras caminaba por los pasillos del colegio o por los pasillos del periódico, le decía: ¿Hasta cuándo piensas seguir así, Chile? ¿Es que te vas a convertir en otra cosa? ¿En un monstruo que ya nadie reconocerá?».”
― Roberto Bolaño, By Night in Chile

“يقع على المرء الواجب الأخلاقي لأن يكون مسؤولا عن أعماله وعن كلماته أيضا بل وحتى عن صمته،بلى عن صمته،لأن الصمت أيضا يصعد إلى السماء ويسمعه الله والله وحده يفهمه ويحكم عليه،لذلك احذروا الصمت كثيرا.”
― روبرتو بولانيو, By Night in Chile

“يجبُ أن يكونَ المرء مسئولاً. الفرد عليه التزامٌ أخلاقي بالمسئولية عن أفعاله ، وأيضاً عن كلماته ، وحتى عن صمته، لأنَ الصمت يصعدُ إلى السماءِ أيضاً، ويسمعه الربُّ ، وهو فقط يفهمه ويحكمُ عليه . أنا مسئولُ عن كل شيء. صمتي طاهر ، فليكُن هذا واضحاً ، وعلى الأخص فليكن واضحاً للرب ، ما عداه لا أهمية له ، أما الرب فهو مايهمني .”
― Roberto Bolaño, By Night in Chile

“Is that the true, the supreme terror, to discover that I am the wizened youth whose cries no one can hear?”
― Roberto Bolaño, By Night in Chile

“One day the Pope is having a quiet conversation with a German theologian in one of the rooms of the Vatican. Suddenly two French archaeologists burst in, very agitated and nervous, and they tell the Holy Father they have just got back from Israel with some very good news and some rather bad news. The Pope beseeches them to come out with it, and not to leave him in suspense. Talking over each other, the Frenchmen say the good news is they have discovered the Holy Sepulchre. The Holy Sepulchre? says the Pope. The Holy Sepulchre. Not a shadow of a doubt. The Pope is moved to tears. What’s the bad news? he asks, drying his eyes. Well, inside the Holy Sepulchre we found the body of Christ. The Pope passes out. The Frenchmen rush to his side and fan his face. The only one who’s calm is the German theologian, and he says: Ah, so Jesus really existed?”
― Roberto Bolaño, By Night in Chile

“I went on writing reviews for the newspaper, and critical articles crying out for a different approach to culture, as even the most inattentive reader could hardly fail to notice if he scratched the surface a little, critical articles crying out, indeed begging, for a return to the Greek and Latin greats, to the Troubadours, to the dolce stil nuovo and the classics of Spain, France and England, more culture! more culture! read Whitman and Pound and Eliot, read Neruda and Borges and Vallejo, read Victor Hugo, for God’s sake, and Tolstoy, and proudly I cried myself hoarse in the desert, but my vociferations and on occasions my howling could only be heard by those who were able to scratch the surface of my writings with the nails of their index fingers, and they were not many, but enough for me, and life went on and on and on, like a necklace of rice grains, on each grain of which a landscape had been painted, tiny grains and microscopic landscapes, and I knew that everyone was putting that necklace on and wearing it, but no one had the patience or the strength or the courage to take it off and look at it closely and decipher each landscape grain by grain, partly because to do so required the vision of a lynx or an eagle, and partly because the landscapes usually turned out to contain unpleasant surprises like coffins, makeshift cemeteries, ghost towns, the void and the horror, the smallness of being and its ridiculous will, people watching television, people going to football matches, boredom navigating the Chilean imagination like an enormous aircraft carrier. And that’s the truth. We were bored. We intellectuals. Because you can't read all day and all night. You can't write all day and all night. Splendid isolation has never been our style...”
― Roberto Bolaño, By Night in Chile

“جاءت أوقات صعبة وأوقات مضطربة وفوقَ كل شيء جاءت أوقاتٌ رهيبة ، اجتمعت فيها الصعوبة والإضطراب والقسوة .”
― Roberto Bolaño, By Night in Chile

“[A]nd the wizened youth trembles more and more violently, wrinkles his nose and then pounces on the story. But only I know the story, the real story. And it is simple and cruel and true and it should make us laugh, it should make us die laughing. But we only know how to cry, the only thing we do wholeheartedly is cry.”
― Roberto Bolaño, By Night in Chile

“Uno tiene la obligación moral de ser responsable de sus actos y también de sus palabras e incluso de sus silencios, sí, de sus silencios, porque también los silencios ascienden al cielo y los oye Dios y sólo Dios los comprende y los juzga, así que mucho cuidado con los silencios.”
― Roberto Bolaño, Nocturno de Chile

“Uno tiene la obligación moral de ser responsable de sus actos y también de sus palabras e incluso de sus silencios, sí, de sus silencios, porque también los silencios ascienden al cielo y los oye Dios y sólo Dios los comprende y los juzga, así que mucho cuidado con los silencios”
― Roberto Bolaño, By Night in Chile

“في مرات أخرى كانت تعود صور طفولتي ومراهقتي فأرى ظل والدي يجري في ممرات البيت كما لو أنه ابن عرس،أو نمس، أو بالأحرى حنكليس محبوس في وعاء غير مناسب كثيرا.”
― روبرتو بولانيو, By Night in Chile

“بماذا تفيد الحياة ، فيمَ تفيدُ الكتب ؟ ليست إلاَّ ظلالاَ ..”
― Roberto Bolaño, By Night in Chile

“I cannot actually see him, but there he is in my mind's eye, crouching or down on all fours, on a hillock, black clouds racing past over his head, and the hillock becomes a hill and the next minute it is the atrium of a church, an atrium as black as the clouds, charged with electricity like the clouds, and glistening with moisture or blood, and the wizened youth trembles more and more violently, wrinkles his nose and then pounces on the story. But only I know the story, the real story. And it is simple and cruel and true and it should make us laugh, it should make us die laughing. But we only know how to cry, the only thing we do wholeheartedly is cry. The curfew was in force.”
― Roberto Bolaño, By Night in Chile

“في تشيلي لم تكن الأمور تسير بشكلٍ جيد .بالنسبة لي كانت الأمور تسير بشكلٍ جيد ،أما بالنسبة للوطن فلم تكن الأمور تسير بشكلٍ جيد .”
― Roberto Bolaño, By Night in Chile

“لا يجب أن نحلم ، يجب أن نكونَ عاقلين ، لا يجب أن يفقد الإنسان ثقته بنفسه بعدَ هزيمة ، لكن يجب أن يكونَ وطنياً .”
― Roberto Bolaño, By Night in Chile

“said a hasty prayer and headed for a wooden bench, there to recover a composure more in keeping with what I was, or what at the time I considered myself to be. Our”
― Roberto Bolaño, By Night in Chile

“Y allí estaba yo. Y ellas me vieron y yo las vi. ¿Y qué fue lo que vi? Ojeras. Labios partidos. Pómulos brillantes. Una paciencia que no me pareció resignación cristiana. Una paciencia como venida de otras latitudes. Una paciencia que no era chilena aunque aquellas mujeres fueran chilenas. Una paciencia que no se había gestado en nuestro país ni en América y que ni siquiera era una paciencia europea, ni asiática ni africana (aunque estas dos últimas culturas me son prácticamente desconocidas). Una paciencia como venida del espacio exterior. Y esa paciencia a punto estuvo de colmar mi paciencia.”
― Roberto Bolaño, By Night in Chile

“…and for goodness’ sake read widely and deeply…”
― Roberto Bolaño, By Night in Chile

“His falcon, called Othello, had struck terror into the heart of every pigeon in Turin...”
― Roberto Bolaño, By Night in Chile

“If I had to describe my poetry, I would say that, until then, it had always been Apollonian, yet I had begun to write in what might tentatively be described as a Dionysiac mode. But in fact it wasn't Dionysiac poetry. Or demonic poetry. It was just raving mad.”
― Roberto Bolaño, By Night in Chile