Mikhail Shishkin > Quotes

“The more of myself I transferred into words, the more obvious it became that words were powerless to express anything. Or, rather, it’s like this—words can create something of their own, but you can’t become words. Words are cheats. They promise to carry you off on the voyage into eternity, and then they set out in secret under full sail, stranding you on the shoreline.

But the most important point is that reality doesn’t fit into any words. Reality strikes you dumb. Everything important that happens in life is beyond words. There comes a point when you understand that if what you have experienced can be expressed in words, it means you haven’t experienced anything.”
― Mikhail Shishkin, Письмовник

“Love is like the moon: if it's not waxing, it's waning, but it's the same as the last time, always the same.”
― Mikhail Shishkin, Maidenhair

“People rarely die from love, but they are frequently born from it.”
― Mikhail Shishkin, Maidenhair

“Whoever can be happy right now, should.”
― Mikhail Shishkin

“Since everyone can't be happy anyway, whoever can be happy right now, should. You have to be happy today, right now, no matter what. Someone said there can't be a heaven if there's a hell. Supposedly it's impossible to be in heaven if you know suffering exists somewhere. Nonsense. True enjoyment of life can only be felt if you've known suffering.”
― Mikhail Shishkin, Maidenhair

“Everything has its price: sorrow for happiness; birth for love; death for birth.”
― Mikhail Shishkin, Maidenhair

“All the rest, besides my loving and being loved, has no importance whatsoever.”
― Mikhail Shishkin, Maidenhair

“Și moartea ta e un dar. Mori de dragul lor.”
― Mikhail Shishkin, Scrisorar

“Numai că arca mea nu este din lemn,ci din cuvinte.”
― Mikhail Shishkin, Scrisorar

“Dar ştii ce se va întâmpla dacă numărătorul ăsta stelar de afară va fi împărţit la numitor? O jumătate a universului la cealaltă? Voi rezulta eu. Şi tu alături de mine.”
― Mikhail Shishkin, Письмовник

“If God gave each person his own life, then He will give each person his own special resurrection. If God performed one miracle and gave me this rushed, elusive life, then he will think up a way to give me another that lasts. And there will be this Easter night there, too. And today's evening after the rain.”
― Mikhail Shishkin, Maidenhair

“There's a threshold of pain, a person loses consciousness in order not to die. And there's a threshold of grief, it suddenly stops hurting. And you feel nothing. Nothing at all.”
― Mikhail Shishkin, Письмовник

“Înțelegi , Sașa , am trăit într-un fel de înstrăinare față de viață. Între mine și lume, ca un gard, s-au ridicat literele.”
― Mikhail Shishkin, Scrisorar

“The war is going on, and I'm singing. But I can't bandage up the wounded like Tala. I can, of course. But so can hundreds of other young women. Let the daring and decisive ones do it, not those like me. No, I'm daring and decisive, too. And I want to sing. It's not my fault that my youth came in time of war! I won't get another youth! And I'm convinced that singing when all around is hatred and death is no less important. Maybe even more important.

This is what I believe: If somewhere on earth the wounded are finished off with rifle butts, that means somewhere else people have to be singing and rejoicing in life! The more death there is around, the more important to counter it with life, love, and beauty!”
― Mikhail Shishkin, Maidenhair

“If you are going to say something new, you need to feel the centuries of tradition inside you. If a button is pushed at some power plant, the light flickers in the city's windows. So, too, in literature, if a word is written, it reverberates in all the existing books, regardless of whether you've read them or not.”
― Mikhail Shishkin, Calligraphy Lesson: The Collected Stories

“If beauty and love do not suit the times, then you have to be beautiful and to love to spite the times!”
― Mikhail Shishkin

“Resurrection of the flesh. Out of nothingness, out of the void, out of white plaster, out of a dense fog, out of a snowy field, out of a sheet of paper there suddenly will appear people, living bodies, they rise up to remain forever, because they can’t vanish, disappearing is simply not an option; death has already come and gone. First the contour, outlines, edges. Period, period, comma makes a crooked little face. Cross-out. The man stretches from this crack in the wall to that spot of sun. Stretches from nail to nail.”
― Mikhail Shishkin, Maidenhair

“You have to arrive at unbelief yourself, and Russians get their unbelief for free, therefore they don't value it, they value faith.”
― Mikhail Shishkin, Maidenhair

“Nu te agăţa de cuvinte. Sunt numai o traducere. Doar ştii că orice cuvânt e o traducere proastă a originalului. Totul se întâmplă într-o limbă care nu există. Şi acele cuvinte inexistente sunt cele mai importante.”
― Mikhail Shishkin, Scrisorar

“You know, the only important thing is that there was a person for whom you were the most important being in the world. Everything else is inconsequential.”
― Mikhail Shishkin, Calligraphy Lesson: The Collected Stories

“Pentru mine era evident, cea mai veche arheosubstanță era cerneala.”
― Mikhail Shishkin, Scrisorar

“... pasarea este crucea de la gitul lui Dumnezeu.”
― Mikhail Shishkin, Maidenhair

“A foreign country remains foreign until you find people near and dear to you there.”
― Mikhail Shishkin, Calligraphy Lesson: The Collected Stories

“Ты знаешь, наверное так - вот есть порог боли. Человек теряет сознание, чтобы не умереть. А есть порог горя - вдруг перестает болеть.
Ничего не чувствуешь. Вообще ничего.”
― Mikhail Shishkin

“The author is the interface between earth and sky. Between life and text. It is he who can lead people out of time and into forever.

…

Languages is a means of resurrection. … Words must be made living not only until the cock crows but so the they cannot die anymore. I have to suck dead time out of the word and blow living time in, mouth to mouth—and force it to breathe, like a drowning victim. I have to resurrect it to eternal life with our breath. I have to use words to create a reality where there is no death.

Death can be overcome only by the word and by love.”
― Mikhail Shishkin, Calligraphy Lesson: The Collected Stories

“Единственное состояние, когда человек по-настоящему не одинок, – это когда женщина ждет ребенка.”
― Mikhail Shishkin, Письмовник

“Totul se schimbase deodata - puteam sa ating orice din ceea ce inainte era inaccesibil, strain. Tocmai fusese strain, dar acum era al meu, ca si cum trupul meu se marise, se contopise cu al tau. Si acum ma simteam pe mine numai prin intermediul tau. Pielea mea exista numai acolo unde tu o atingeai.”
― Mikhail Shishkin

“Having your loved ones near you is the only important thing, and everything else has little meaning.”
― Mikhail Shishkin, Calligraphy Lesson: The Collected Stories

“Probabil, pentru a fi real, trebuie sa existi nu in constiinta ta, care e asa de nesigura, sub influenta, de exemplu, a somnului, cand nici tu nu stii daca esti viu sau nu, ci in constiinta altui om. Si nu pur si simplu a unui om, ci a celui pentru care e important sa stie ca tu existi.”
― Mikhail Shishkin

“في مثل هذه الدقائق في الليل ، يشعر الإنسان بالوحدة و يودّ كثيرًا أن يكون سببًأ لحدوث شيء ما”
― Mikhail Shishkin, Письмовник