Álvaro Mutis > Quotes

“Everything changed when I met the girl. She penetrated a corner of my soul that had been kept sealed and even I didn't know was there. With her gestures, the scent of her skin, her sudden, intense glances that filled me with overwhelming tenderness, with her dependence that was a kind of unthinking, absolute acceptance, she could rescue me instantly from my confusions and obsessions, my discouragement and failure, or my simple daily routine, and leave me inside a radiant circle made of throbbing energy and powerful certainty, like the effects of an unknown drug that produces unconditional happiness.”
― Álvaro Mutis, The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll

“Life always holds in store surprises that are more complex and unforeseeable than any dream, and the secret is to let them come and not block them with castles in the air.”
― Alvaro Mutis, Die Abenteuer und Irrfahrten des Gaviero Maqroll : die sieben Maqroll-Romane

“Weather is a purely personal matter. There is no such thing as a climate that is cold or hot, good or bad, healthy or unhealthy. People take it upon themselves to create a fantasy in their imagination and call it weather. There's only one climate in the world, but the message that nature sends is interpreted according to strictly personal, non-transferable rules.”
― Álvaro Mutis, The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll

“Since a good part of my life has been wasted dealing with fools just like them, it's not worry I feel but weariness as I watch the approach of one more episode in the old, tired story of men who try to beat life, the smart ones who think they know it all and die with a look of surprise on their faces: at the final moment they always see the truth - they never really understood anything, never held anything in their hands. An old story, old and boring.”
― Alvaro Mutis, The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll

“المرآة تعكس تلك الصورة الأخرى التي لن نعرفها أبدًا”
― Álvaro Mutis, Abdul Bashur, soñador de navíos

“ليس هنا أسوأ من هؤلاء السادة المتأنقين الذين يخرجون عن مسارهم ، ويقطعون الصلة بأعراف طبقتهم و عاداتها ، إنهم شديدو الخطر ، لأنهم خلّفوا وراءهم المبادئ التي ولدوا عليها ، ولايحترمون أبدًا تلك التي يقرها الرعاع”
― Álvaro Mutis, Abdul Bashur, soñador de navíos

“On land I have too much time, I'm overwhelmed by a boredom that eventually paralyzes me. But this isn't really the main reason for my suicide. Even if I had another chance to go to sea, I know that for a long time I've been storing up something I can only define as a weariness with being alive, with having to choose between one thing and another, with listening to people around me talk about things that basically don't interest them, that they really know nothing about. The foolishness of our fellow humans knows no bounds, my dear Gaviero. If it didn't sound absurd, I'd say I'm leaving because I can't stand the noise the living make.”
― Alvaro Mutis

“Me intriga sobremanera la forma como se repiten en mi vida estas caídas, estas decisiones erróneas desde su inicio, estos callejones sin salida cuya suma vendría a ser la historia de mi existencia”
― Álvaro Mutis, La nieve del almirante

“الهدف الذي نسعى إليه دون تقدير للعقبات ، ودون خوف من المخاطر ، هو هدف لا يمكن الوصول إليه مطلقًا”
― Álvaro Mutis, Abdul Bashur, soñador de navíos

“La lectura obligada es nefasta. Lean por placer, tengan una profunda sospecha.”
― Álvaro Mutis

“عندما تأتي الأيام السوداء التي لا تخلف موعدها أبدًا ، لنتذكر بأن السعادة ليست اختراعًا اختلقه الساذجون ، ليخدعوا به أنفسهم”
― Álvaro Mutis, Abdul Bashur, soñador de navíos

“Miraba a los ojos de su interlocutor, pero no era a él a quien miraba. Es decir, más que mirar parecía estar buscando, con secreta y paciente astucia, ese otro ser que nos acompaña siempre y que únicamente sale a la superficie cuando estamos solos, para entregar ciertos mensajes, disolver ciertas frágiles certezas y dejarnos en el desamparo de inconfesables perplejidades...”
― Álvaro Mutis, Ilona llega con la lluvia

“...Porque la muerte, lo que suprime no es a los seres cercanos y que son nuestra vida misma. Lo que la muerte se lleva para siempre es su recuerdo, la imagen que se va borrando, diluyendo, hasta perderse, y es entonces cuando empezamos nosotros a morir también.”
― Álvaro Mutis, Ilona llega con la lluvia

“هؤلاء الغربيون لم يفهموا شيئًا من الإسلام ، والأسوء هو أن هذا الجهل المتعجرف ، يرجع إلى أزمنة الحروب الصليبية”
― Álvaro Mutis, Abdul Bashur, soñador de navíos

“Había algo en ella de aparición inconcebible que no puede decirse con palabras y sólo conociéndola lograría explicarse la desmesurada fortuna que fue estar a su lado y la tortura inaudita que ha sido perderla.”
― Álvaro Mutis, La última escala del Tramp Steamer

“He was a hostage of the void”
― Álvaro Mutis, The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll

“Insistente, reunida en alegres torrenteras, empezó a llevarse toda la miseria de nuestros días, toda la crueldad, el hambre, el delirio, la sorda y mezquina furia de los guardias. Todo se lo fue llevando la lluvia hasta que fuimos quedando sin otra cosa que nos separara del aire viajero que corre por entre las complicadas construcciones de Lecumberri, que el agua transparente que caía de lo más alto del cielo, del rincón en donde nos esperaba la libertad como una loba rabiosa que busca sus hijos.”
― Álvaro Mutis, Diario de Lecumberri

“Pero toda rebeldía contra la imagen paterna, magnificada y opresora, se paga durante el resto de la vida. La única manera de salir de ese laberinto, por el que todos nos internamos alguna vez, es llegar a la convicción de que al padre, en vez de substituirlo, hay que intentar prolongarlo, en la medida de nuestras propias fuerzas y de nuestros propios demonios. No es fácil, ni suele ser grato, pero no existe otro camino para enfrentar el reto de vivir nuestra propia vida.”
― Álvaro Mutis, Amirbar / Abdul Bashur, soñador de navíos / Tríptico de mar y tierra

“Life with Ilona was invariably lived on two levels, or rather in two simultaneous and parallel directions. On the one hand, your feet were always on the ground, you were always intelligently but not obsessively alert to what each day offered in response to the routine question of surviving. On the other hand, imagination and unbounded fantasy suggested a spontaneous and unexpected sequence of scenarios that were always aimed at the radical subversion of every law ever written or established. This was a permanent, organic, rigorous subversion that never permitted travel on the beaten path, the road preferred by most people, the traditional patterns that offer protection to those whom Ilona, without emphasis or pride but without any concessions either, would call "the others.”
― Álvaro Mutis, The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll

“He looked like a homeless convalescent in his light blue T-shirt that had known better days, his navy-blue seaman’s jacket with the black leather buttons, purchased at some second-hand clothing store in a Baltic port, and the rebellious, grayying locks of his unconquerable hair escaping at the sides of his black sailor’s cap. His slightly protruding eyes had the wary look of a man who has seen more than humans are permitted to see, and he carried his eternal duffel bag, with two changes of clothing as threadbare as those he was wearing, a few talismans, each a reservoir of memories of indelible sentiments or miraculous rescues from unspeakable dangers, and the three or four books that always accompanied him.”
― Álvaro Mutis, The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll

“Meditar el tiempo, tratar de saber si el pasado y el futuro son válidos y si en verdad existen, nos lleva a un laberinto que, por familiar, no es menos indescifrable. Cada día somos otro, pero siempre olvidamos que igual sucede con nuestros semejantes. En esto tal vez consista lo que los hombres llaman soledad. O es así, o se trata de una solemne imbecilidad.”
― Álvaro Mutis, Empresas y Tribulaciones de Maqroll el Gaviero

“2There is no greater thing in life than that secret sense of harmony that unites us briefly with the great mysteries of others and allows us to travel alongside them for part of the way.”
― Álvaro Mutis

“Bir kadına yalan söylediğiniz zaman kimsesiz ve bir bahanesi olmayan o çaresiz çocuk oluyoruz yeniden. Kadın tıpkı bitkiler gibi, tıpkı ormanın fırtınaları gibi, tıpkı suların girdapları gibi bizi en karanlık semavi tasarılar ve niyetlerle besliyor. Bunu baştan bilmek iyidir. Tersi sözkonusuysa yıkıcı sürprizlerle karşılaşacağız demektir.”
― Álvaro Mutis, La nieve del almirante

“The tramp steamer entered my field of vision as slowly as a wounded saurian. I could not believe my eyes. With the wondrous splendor of Saint Petersburg in the background, the poor ship intruded on the scene, its sides covered with dirty streaks of rust and refuse that reached all the way to the waterline. The captain's bridge, and the row of cabins on the deck for crew members and occasional passengers, had been painted white a long time before. Now a coat of grime, oil, and urine gave them an indefinite color, the color of misery, of irreparable decadence, of desperate, incessant use. The chimerical freighter slipped through the water to the agonized gasp of its machinery and the irregular rhythm of driving rods that threatened at any moment to fall silent forever. Now it occupied the foreground of the serene, dreamlike spectacle that had held all my attention, and my astonished wonder turned into something extremely difficult to define. This nomadic piece of sea trash bore a kind of witness to our destiny on earth, a pulvis eris that seemed truer and more eloquent in these polished metal waters with the gold and white vision of the capital of the last czars behind them. The sleek outline of the buildings and wharves on the Finnish coast rose at my side. At that moment I felt the stirrings of a warm solidarity for the tramp steamer, as if it were an unfortunate brother, a victim of human neglect and greed to which it responded with a stubborn determination to keep tracing the dreary wake of its miseries on all the world's seas. I watched it move toward the interior of the bay, searching for some discreet dock where it could anchor without too many maneuvers and, perhaps, for as little money as possible. The Honduran flag hung at the stern. The final letters of the name that had almost been erased by the waves were barely visible:... cyon. In what seemed too mocking an irony, the name of this old freighter was probably the Halcyon.”
― Álvaro Mutis

“Como tantas otras veces en nuestras vidas y en las de todos los seres, la respuesta y la solución que buscamos a los callejones sin salida, las traen el azar los recodos insospechados e imprevisibles del tiempo”
― Álvaro Mutis, Ilona llega con la lluvia

“Nunca he creído en eso que las gentes llaman mala suerte, vista como una condición establecida por los hados sin que podamos tener injerencia en su mudanza u orientación”
― Álvaro Mutis, Ilona llega con la lluvia

“The cats of Istanbul,” explained the Gaviero, “possess absolute wisdom. They exercise complete control over the life of the city, but they are so prudent and secretive that the inhabitants are still not aware of the fact.”
― Álvaro Mutis, The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll

“لقد تعلمتُ واعتدت أن أستخرج من الأحلام التي لم تتحق قط ، أسبابًا متماسكة لمواصلة العيش”
― Álvaro Mutis, Abdul Bashur, soñador de navíos

“Cada uno de nosotros se labra su pequeño infierno personal, pero ella ha tenido que cargar, además, con el de otros que ni siquiera estaban ya entre los vivos.”
― Álvaro Mutis, Ilona llega con la lluvia

“Ahora que vuelvo a pensar en ello, me doy cuenta de que el sentido que se embota primero, a medida que la vida se nos va viniendo encima, es el de la piedad. La tan llevada y traída solidaridad humana que jamás ha significado para mí nada concreto. Se la menciona en circunstancias de pasajero pánico. Entonces pensamos más bien en el apoyo de los demás y no en el que nosotros podríamos ofrecerles.”
― Álvaro Mutis, La Nieve del Almirante / Ilona llega con la lluvia / Un bel morir / La última escala del tramp steamer