In-House Weddings Quotes

“Our heads met, our eyes crossed paths, the window to the courtyard lay open, I whispered in his ear and he started crying in my hair, wept like a child, I stroked him, touched by his crying, that he opened up, as he truly was, rent his shirt and exposed his heart like the paintings of Jesus hung over the beds in country houses.”
― Bohumil Hrabal, In-House Weddings

“…and as I was saying, one won't have it easy with him, when Uncle Pepin worked the malt house, that son of mine took up with him, to not be at home, when dark came and we couldn't find him, he would be in the stables, at the troughs with oxen breathing down on him, happier hobnobbing with oxen than in his own home, as I say, one will not have it in any way easy with him.”
― Bohumil Hrabal, In-House Weddings

“You see actually, now it occurs to me, my writing, my writing is also a guard against suicide, as if I run from myself in my writing, but at the same time I ask, what's to become of me? The person I was before and who I am right now, the writing helps cure, the way confession cures Catholics, the way the Wailing Wall cures Jews, the way confessing doubts and secrets and worries to a mute old willow would cure our forbears, and when all's said and done, the way relaxing and talking about whatever's on their mind cures Freud's patients . . Actually that writing of mine is like I run line to line, all so clearly beautiful on the typewriter, I never know what I've written, I'm always chasing some thought, there beyond my reach, I want to catch up to it, but it's always one step ahead of me, just as when I raced to catch the train to Grandma's as a child, as I raced home from school, as I raced out of the house at home, out of myself, along the river, and for that matter as I always did run wherever I happened to be, out and away, ran from girlfriends to buddies to play cards, only to run from the buddies after a while, into the darkness, and when I stopped, I saw I needed to keep running, always from myself, because neither as a child nor as a young man did I ever, ever find any aims, and all my jobs, always jobs that kept me on the run...”
― Bohumil Hrabal, In-House Weddings

“(...) even as a little girl I'd never never remarked how beautiful the tress were, how fine the leaves and bushes were, how beautiful flowerbeds were, truly, I'd never noticed, till then, how beautiful vegetables were, vegetables watered by fat ladies dressed in just their enormous aprons, aprons nobody put on anymore. Actually, a whole transformation was brought about by the person striding next to me like my nanny, my tutor, no need for the person to explain, or lecture, in fact it suited me fine and dandy, I was stubborn, took after my mother, let him try preaching to me, I wouldn't have looked at a thing on purpose, or noticed, I would have sulked, teared up, stared at the ground... But he just walked beside me, gazing around, and I looked where he looked, saw almost what he did, didn't check my watvh, I almost wished time would quit, so I might have walked in that space we had entered together, forever.”
― Bohumil Hrabal, In-House Weddings

“(...) he loved when water dried on his face, when his eyelashes matted with water and dried off swiftly in the sun.
So we'd do our daytrips, and Saturdays amd Sundays go swimming. During wuring weekdays (...) we went to Vltava, down to Maniny there, to its riverside, where poplars rose along the river, where the railway tracks passed and where the sun shone so sweetly in the afternoon. That's where I was at my happiest.”
― Bohumil Hrabal, In-House Weddings

“… a man who would never bore me and who loved me in his own peculiar way, whom I would live with, and whose name I would bear.”
― Bohumil Hrabal, In-House Weddings

“But one never has it easy with that son of mine, one has one devil of a time." Mom was conversing and setting spoons and forks on either side of the Sevres plates "because since he was a youngster he was always, still is, elsewhere, home was hell to him, he just came in to sleep, morning to night he'd be out on Polni Street, the entire town knew him, because he was forever at somebody else's, always wanting to be somewhere other than where he was.”
― Bohumil Hrabal, In-House Weddings

“But when it was he who sat drooping and exhausted, there in front of me, when he'd done lamenting, I brought over the tub and returned the gift he gave me, I untied the shoes from his listless feet, then tugged off his socks, and I got on my knees in front of him and first the one foot, then the other, I washed, it came to me suddenly this washing of feet was truly the most beautiful thing to happen between us so far, as he humbled himself before me, so I also, before him, and I washed his feet, wishing to do that for as long as ever I could. I wiped his feet carefully, and he, toppling over me from the drink. Then I hauled off his sweater, him falling over on me, it was like undressing a corpse, I got the pants off, then the shorts, threw that body down, naked, onto the Union Jack my fiancé used as a bedspread, he splayed his legs and lay on his back, completely relaxed, and went to sleep.”
― Bohumil Hrabal, In-House Weddings

“You have lovely lungs," he said. "Me now, I have beautiful legs," he added proudly.
"What?" I said, surprised.
"I have beautiful legs, take a look, a bit crooked, but from soccer, but that's all I'm proud of, other than my beautiful shoulders, my even more beautiful legs." Не said this and extended his legs, trying to make the knees meet, but he had a gap between them, and I really must admit, he did have nice, muscular legs, a soccer player's tanned legs, one who'd given up the game not that long ago.
"Bowlegs," I said quietly.
"Because of soccer, I played passionately for ten years, but you have to admit, bowlegs look good on me," he said, chuckling.”
― Bohumil Hrabal, In-House Weddings