Time Shelter Quotes

“Somewhere in the Andes, they believe to this very day that the future is behind you. It comes up from behind your back, surprising and unforeseeable, while the past is always before your eyes, that which has already happened. When they talk about the past, the people of the Aymara tribe point in front of them. You walk forward facing the past and you turn back toward the future.”
― Georgi Gospodinov, Time Shelter

“Синдром на непринадлежащите
Никое време не ти принадлежи, никое място не е твое. Това, което търсиш, не търси теб, онова което сънуваш, не те сънува. Знаеш, че нещо е било твое на друго място и в друго време, защото все прекосяваш минали стаи и дни. Но ако си на вярното място, времето е друго. Ако си във вярното време, мястото е различно.
Нелечимо.”
― Георги Господинов, Time Shelter

“He has no friends, no living relatives. No one to call. If we are not in someone else’s memory, do we even exist at all?”
― Georgi Gospodinov, Time Shelter

“We are constantly producing the past. We are factories for the past. Living past-making machines, what else? We eat time and produce the past. Even death doesn’t put a stop to this. A person might be gone, but his past remains.”
― Georgi Gospodinov, Time Shelter

“Миналото не е само това, което ти се е случило. Понякога е онова, което само си съчинявал.”
― Георги Господинов, Времеубежище

“In the end, writing arises when man realizes that memory is not enough.”
― Georgi Gospodinov, Time Shelter

“Forgetting takes a lot of work. You have to constantly remember that you are supposed to forget something. Surely, that's how every ideology functions.”
― Georgi Gospodinov, Time Shelter

“When you have no future, you vote for the past.”
― Georgi Gospodinov, Time Shelter

“Now the last person who remembered me as a child is gone, I told myself. And only then did I burst into sobs, like a child.”
― Georgi Gospodinov, Time Shelter

“I'm getting old. Exiled ever further from the Rome of childhood in the distant empty provinces of old age, from which there is no return. And Rome no longer answers my letters. Somewhere the past exists as a house or a street that you've left for a short while, for five minutes, and you've found yourself in a strange city. It's been written that the past is a foreign country. Nonsense. The past is my home country. The future is a foreign country, full of strange faces, I won't set foot there.

Let me go back home... my mother told me not to be late.”
― Georgi Gospodinov, Time Shelter

“You can't make a museum to preserve something that has never left.”
― Georgi Gospodinov, Time Shelter

“The past settles into afternoons, that’s where time visibly slows down, it dozes off in the corners, blinking like a cat looking through thin blinds. It’s always afternoon when you remember something, at least that’s how it is for me. Everything is in the light.”
― Georgi Gospodinov, Time Shelter

“There is no time machine except the human being.”
― Georgi Gospodinov, Time Shelter

“The things I do not dare to do will transform into stories.”
― Georgi Gospodinov, Time Shelter

“no longer remember who said that a nation was a group of people who have agreed to jointly remember and forget the same things.”
― Georgi Gospodinov, Time Shelter

“Time feeds on us. We are food for time.”
― Georgi Gospodinov, Time Shelter

“Everything always comes down to language in the end.”
― Georgi Gospodinov, Time Shelter

“Всички случили се истории си приличат, всяка неслучила се история е неслучила се посвоему.”
― Georgi Gospodinov, Времеубежище

“Имаше две Българии и нито една от тях не беше моята.”
― Георги Господинов, Времеубежище

“In fact, the first thing that goes in memory loss is the very concept of the future.”
― Georgi Gospodinov, Time Shelter

“Щом хората, с които си споделял общо минало, си тръгнат, те вземат със себе си половината от него. Всъщност цялото, защото половин минало няма. Все едно си скъсал вертикално една страница на две и четеш изреченията само до средата, а другият чете краищата. И никой нищо не разбира. Този, който държи другия край, го няма. Този, който е бил толкова близо в дните, сутрините, обедите, вечерите и нощите, в месеците и годините на това минало... Няма кой да го потвърди, няма с кого да го изсвирите заедно. Струва ми се, че когато жена ми си тръгна, изгубих половината си минало, всъщност цялото.
Миналото се свири на четири ръце, най-малко на четири ръце.”
― Георги Господинов, Time Shelter

“The past grows like a weed.”
― Georgi Gospodinov, Time Shelter

“Ние сме апокалипсисът на света.”
― Георги Господинов, Времеубежище

“Не сблъсъците, счупените витрини, изселените, пратените по затворите, битите и изнасилени, убитите даже, не това смазва, а тънкото, пронизващо усещане за безсмислие в някой последвал следобед, когато видиш хора да се смеят на улицата, да се събират, да правят деца в същата тази система, която теб вече те е изхвърлила за дълго от живота.”
― Георги Господинов, Времеубежище

“The past is not just that which happened to you. Sometimes it is that which you just imagined.”
― Georgi Gospodinov, Time Shelter

“It’s nice to know your home country so well that you can leave it shortly before the trap springs.”
― Georgi Gospodinov, Time Shelter

“Monsters still do exist, however. There is one monster that stalks every one of us. Death, you’ll say, yes, of course, death is his brother, but old age is the monster.”
― Georgi Gospodinov, Time Shelter

“When people with whom you’ve shared a common past leave, they take half of it with them. Actually, they take the whole thing, since there’s no such thing as half a past. It’s as if you’ve torn a page in half lengthwise and you’re reading the lines only to the middle, and the other person is reading the ends. And nobody understands anything. The person holding the other half is gone. The person who was so close during those days, mornings, afternoons, evenings, and nights, in the months and years...There is no one to confirm it, there is no one to play through it with. When my wife left, I felt like I lost half my past. Actually, I lost the whole thing.

The past can only be played by four hands, by four hands at the very least.”
― Georgi Gospodinov, Time Shelter

“In the end, in the referendum people chose the years when they were young....There was a certain injustice in that - choosing the time the next generation would live in. As happens in all elections, actually.”
― Georgi Gospodinov, Time Shelter

“Ако не сме в нечия памет, има ли ни изобщо?”
― Георги Господинов, Time Shelter