The Coldness of Objects Quotes

“Nothing had changed and yet everything had changed, and it was this invisibility that he found most disturbing, for it depicted by omission all the old freedoms. The vitality hidden in things that may have once got on his nerves had been snuffed out: there were no groups of tourists taking selfies; no men of God yelling fire and brimstone; no demonstrators marching or chaining themselves onto railings; no feverish sounds, or smells of sugared almonds and poisonous hot dogs – unbelievably no smells at all. The loudness of these absences was unendurable; it was all Mr Rubens could do to click his eyes wide open, and cast around for memories that might oppose the deadly dearth.”
― Panayotis Cacoyannis, The Coldness of Objects

“It had all to do with keeping intact a thread that was a gateway to the past, with all the love it had contained not lost and remembered but always alive. Life was labyrinthine, but ultimately all its tangles were united.”
― Panayotis Cacoyannis, The Coldness of Objects

“By clinging on to grief so implacably, he had made himself impervious to life.”
― Panayotis Cacoyannis, The Coldness of Objects

“Midnight had arrived in a bright fluorescent flash, yielding to the babel of a crowd abruptly at a loss in the absence of music.”
― Panayotis Cacoyannis, The Coldness of Objects

“Idle hands were the devil’s tools, and an effective bureaucracy could never be too convoluted.”
― Panayotis Cacoyannis, The Coldness of Objects