Alina Mustovici > Alina's Quotes

“Because the sunset, like survival, exists only on the verge of its own disappearing. To be gorgeous, you must first be seen, but to be seen allows you to be hunted.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“Too much joy, I swear, is lost in our desperation to keep it.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“Is that what art is? To be touched thinking what we feel is ours when, in the end, it was someone else, in longing, who finds us?”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“I believe that love is the indispensable fuel that allows us to go on living. Someday that love may end. Or it may never amount to anything. But even if love fades away, even if it’s unrequited, you can still hold on to the memory of having loved someone, of having fallen in love with someone. And that’s a valuable source of warmth.”
― Haruki Murakami, First Person Singular: Stories

“Of course, winning is much better than losing. No argument there. But winning or losing doesn’t affect the weight and value of the time. It’s the same time, either way. A minute is a minute, an hour is an hour. We need to cherish it. We need to deftly reconcile ourselves with time, and leave behind as many precious memories as we can—that’s what’s the most valuable.”
― Haruki Murakami, First Person Singular: Stories

“Your brain is made to think about difficult things. To help you get to a point where you understand something that you didn’t understand at first. And that becomes the cream of your life. The rest is boring and worthless.”
― Haruki Murakami, First Person Singular: Stories

“Even memory though, can hardly be relied on. Can anyone say for certain what really happened to us back then?
If we’re blessed though, a few words might remain by our side. They climb to the top of the hill during the night, crawl into small holes dug to fit the shape of their bodies, stay quite still, and let the stormy winds of time blow past. Dawn finally breaks, the wild wind subsides, and the surviving words quietly peek out from the surface. For the most part they have small voices—they are shy and only have ambiguous ways of expressing themselves. Even so, they are ready to serve as witnesses. As honest, fair witnesses. But in order to create those long enduring, long-suffering words, or else to find them and leave them behind, you must sacrifice, unconditionally, your own body, your very own heart. You have to lay down your neck on a cold stone pillow illuminated by the winter moon.”
― Haruki Murakami, First Person Singular: Stories

“Cum să fac să nu o iau în brațe
când o văd trecând prin univers?

îmi fac o listă:
de pus mereu în buzunar un trotuar de rezervă, când o văd
că se apropie de mine scot trotuarul și trec pe partea cealaltă

mă prefac neatent, întorc capul spre zid mă zidesc în el
trec prin zid

sau:
mă întorc brusc și o iau la fugă înapoi, toată lumea va înțelege,
(am uitat ceva esențial, undeva, cu zece douăzeci treizeci
de ani în urmă, fug înapoi spre copilărie)

sau, și mai bine, când o văd că se apropie de mine
îmi ridic brațele, le transform în aripi, descopăr brusc
că sunt capabil să zbor, la revedere, Domnișoară
nu mai sunt obligat să mor dacă nu vă iau în brațe

sau, și mai bine, nu mă mai nasc, nu mai scriu nimic
nici măcar acest poem nu mai există

nu, nu pot să-i fac asta, ea trăiește cu un poem pe zi
mai bine mă prefac în poem
se va parfuma cu mine, se va lipi de mine la micul dejun
mă va citi poate de mai multe ori…”
― Matei Vişniec, Negustorul de începuturi de roman

“Sometimes when I look at you, I feel I'm gazing at a distant star.
It's dazzling, but the light is from tens of thousands of years ago.
Maybe the star doesn't even exist any more. Yet sometimes that light seems more real to me than anything.”
― Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun

“I cut off my head and threw it in the sky. It turned into birds. I called it thinking.”
― Richard Siken, War of the Foxes

“Someone has to leave first. This is a very old story. There is no other version of this story.”
― Richard Siken, War of the Foxes