Andrés Neuman > Quotes

“Love and translation look alike in their grammar. To love someone implies transforming their words into ours. Making an effort to understand the other person and, inevitably, to misinterpret them. To construct a precarious language together.”
― Andrés Neuman

“It's the same with books, you see mounds of them in bookshops and you want to read them all, or at least to have a taste of them. You think you could be missing out on something important, you see them and they intrigue you, they tempt you, they tell you how insignificant your life is and how tremendous it could be.”
― Andrés Neuman, Traveler of the Century

“We lose the fear of letting go of our baggage, but also the certainty that what is in them belongs to us.”
― Andrés Neuman, Traveler of the Century

“I wonder whether, perhaps without realizing it, we seek out the books we need to read. Or whether books themselves, which are intelligent entities, detect their readers and catch their eye. In the end, every book is the I Ching. You pick it up, open it, and there it is, there you are.”
― Andrés Neuman

“Perhaps farewells create new territories, or they send us back to the only territory that truly belongs to us, that of solitude.”
― Andrés Neuman

“But isn't that what love is, the old man said, being happy to stay?”
― Andrés Neuman, Traveler of the Century

“Companionship isn't about experiencing the great moments together. True companionship is the other stuff. Sharing a sincere doing nothing.”
― Andrés Neuman, Talking to Ourselves

“I don't know how long it will all last either, and for now I don't care. Today it is thus, we both agree, and with you it is always today.”
― Andrés Neuman, Traveler of the Century

“...(Places are constantly changing, haven't you noticed the branches, the river?) No one notices those things,...everyone walks around without seeing, they become accustomed, accustomed to their houses, their jobs, their loved ones, and in the end they convince themselves that this is their life, there can be no other, it's just a habit.”
― Andres Neuman, Traveler of the Century

“Everyone's life, Álvaro declaimed in a comic voice, is both insignificant and tremendous.”
― Andrés Neuman, Traveler of the Century

“Packing a bag doesn't make you aware of changes, rather it compels you to postpone the past, and the present is taken up with concerns about the immediate. Time slides over the travelers' skin.”
― Andres Neuman, El viajero del siglo

“When I was young, because I was young once like you, I heard many organ grinders play, and I can assure you no two tunes ever sounded the same, even on the same instrument. That's how it is, isn't it? The less love you put into things the more they resemble one another. The same goes for stories, everyone knows them by heart, but when someone tells them with love, I don't know, they seem new.”
― Andrés Neuman, Traveler of the Century

“... it's a bad sign when someone drinks a lot and doesn't laugh.”
― Andrés Neuman

“Travelers come here, people who have lost their way or were headed somewhere else, lone wolves. And they all end up staying here, Hans. You'll get used to it. I don' thin' sso, said Hans, I'm p-passing through. You'll get used to it, Álvaro repeated, I've been passing through here for over ten years now.”
― Andrés Neuman, Traveler of the Century

“Cuando un libro me dice lo que yo quería decir, siento el derecho a apropiarme de sus palabras, como si alguna vez hubieran sido mías y estuviera recuperándolas”
― Andrés Neuman, Talking to Ourselves

“Farewells are so strange. There’s something terrifying, deadly, about them, and yet they awaken a desperate urge to live. Perhaps farewells create new territories, or they send us back to the only territory that truly belongs to us, that of solitude. It is as though we needed to go back there from time to time, to draw a line and say: I came from here, this was me, what sort of person am I?”
― Andrés Neuman, Traveler of the Century

“History shows that people are as changeable as rivers.”
― Andrés Neuman, Traveler of the Century

“Well, this is how I see it - every tune tells a tale, nearly always a sad one. When I turn the handle I imagine I'm the hero of that tale and I try to feel at one with its melody. But at the same time it's as if I'm pretending, do you see?”
― Andrés Neuman, Traveler of the Century

“Al viajar a determinados lugares, nos desplazamos hacia delante con el cuerpo y hacia atrás con la memoria. Entonces avanzamos hacia algún pasado.”
― Andrés Neuman, Cómo viajar sin ver

“Si por arte de magia me permitiesen repetir alguna edad, estoy segura de que evitaría ser demasiado joven. Añoro como mucho mis circunstancias de entonces. O mi falta de circunstancias. Todo lo que pude haber sido cuando todavía no era nadie. Si pudiera retroceder a aquella época, lo único que haría es quedarme inmóvil, maravillada, contemplando la amplitud brutal del porvenir. Es lo más parecido a la felicidad que se me ocurre".”
― Andrés Neuman, Fractura

“These memories–we travel inside them. We are their passengers.”
― Andrés Neuman, The Things We Don't Do

“I don't know what it is about this city. ...First you appeared, ...and then her, there's always some reason for me to delay my journey. Sometimes it feels as if I've just arrived in Wardernburg; other days I wake up with the sensation of having lived here all my life. When I go out I look at the coaches and say to myself: Go on, climb aboard, it's very simple, you've done it a thousand times. Yet I let them go by, and I don't understand what's happening to me.”
― Andres Neuman, Traveler of the Century

“...Se trata de la certeza que tu amplitud es mi horizonte”
― Andres Neuman

“…en serio, pienso que para saber dónde quiere estar uno necesita ir a lugares distintos, conocer cosas, gente, palabras nuevas (¿eso es viajar o escapar?,preguntó el organillero), buena pregunta, déjeme pensar, a ver, es las dos cosas, también se viaja para escapar, eso no es malo. Tampoco es lo mismo huir que mirar hacia delante”
― Andrés Neuman, El viajero del siglo

“Las mañanas me gustan menos, tienen, no sé, demasiadas expectativas, y el silencio de las noches me asusta, ahora prefiero las tardes, son menos exigentes, estoy mirando el atardecer y, fíjate, me entra la duda, ¿de dónde?, ¿de dónde carajo sale la belleza?,”
― Andrés Neuman

“Importuna razón, no me persigas; en vano tu voz áspera murmura; si en ley de amor, si a fuerza de ternura no domas, no contrastas, no mitigas; si atacas al mortal y no lo abrigas, si (conociendo el mal) no le das cura, déjame demorarme en mi locura, importuna razón, no me persigas; es tu intento, tu fin llenar de celo esta alma, la víctima de aquella a quien, cambiante, en brazos de otros veo: tú quieres que me aparte de mi bella, la acuse, la desdeñe; y mi deseo es morder, delirar, morir por ella.”
― Andrés Neuman, El viajero del siglo

“Las que saben lo que quieren nunca quieren nada interesante.”
― Andrés Neuman

“Que hay gente que te cambia la vida en poco tiempo, y otra que tenés cerca siempre y no te cambia nada.”
― Andrés Neuman, Fractura

“Las flechas disparadas
una contra la otra
se encuentran y dividen
el vacío en su vuelo:
así vuelvo al origen.”
― Andrés Neuman, Fractura

“«Caduca mi burbuja», leemos al principio del libro. Me parece una posible sinopsis de estos instantes de perfección destinados a quebrarse, tal como estalla una esfera entre las manos. Con hiriente delicadeza, Marcela Ribadeneira demuestra que conoce la simetría y sus accidentes, la forma literaria y su elástico nervio. Por eso se trata de un debut de alto nivel. Con un ritmo puntuado a cuchilladas, sus matrioskas contienendiminutas intimidades que liberan partículas de elegante tragedia. Bestiarios de interior. Epifanías parciales. Reflejos que meditan. Si «la repugnancia está en el espejo», su antídoto suele hallarse en la identidad literaria, siempre más verdadera que la nuestra.”
― Andrés Neuman