Ilina > Ilina's Quotes

“The most solid advice for a writer is this, I think: Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.”
― William Saroyan, The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze and Other Stories

“I am dead. I have no desire for you. My body no longer wants the one who doesn’t love.”
― Marguerite Duras, The Lover

“When it's in a book I don't think it'll hurt any more ...exist any more. One of the things writing does is wipe things out. Replace them.”
― Marguerite Duras, The Lover

“Years after the war, after marriages, children, divorces, books, he came to Paris with his wife. He phoned her. It's me. She recognized him at once from the voice. He said, I just wanted to hear your voice. She said, it's me, hello. He was nervous, afraid, as before. His voice suddenly trembled. And with the trembling, suddenly, she heard again the voice of China. He knew she'd begun writing books, he'd heard about it through her mother whom he'd met again in Saigon. And about her younger brother, and he'd been grieved for her. Then he didn't know what to say. And then he told her. Told her that it was as before, that he still loved her, he could never stop loving her, that he'd love her until death.”
― Marguerite Duras, The Lover

“Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing
inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and
purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.”
― Naomi Shihab Nye, Words Under the Words: Selected Poems

“Because sometimes I live in a hurricane of words
and not one of them can save me.”
― Naomi Shihab Nye, Words Under the Words: Selected Poems

“Deserve your dream.”
― octavio paz

“Трябва да се научиш да се браниш от стръмното! Гледаш: скала, препречена пред тебе, и спираш. А не знаеш, че скалата е също път. И то най-прекият и най-щедрият - ще те възнагради за усилието с най-красивата гледка, невидена от никого!”
― Blaga Dimitrova, Лавина

“Ти гониш
Единичните стъпки все гонят някого или нещо.
Мислиш, кой знае какво става там без тебе.
Другите напредват. Изпреварват те.
Весело им е.
А на тебе ти е ядно до плач.
Макар и да си станал рано, изпитваш ръждиво чувство, че си се успала, че си пропуснала най-свежото утро в живота си.
Пътят им е интересен, пълен с новости.
Ти изоставаш. Те стигат далече. Качват се нависоко.
А ти си още долу, в ниското.
Стъпват на някакъв връх. Цялата земя е на длан пред тях и им принадлежи.
А ти нямаш нищо освен стремежа да ги настигнеш.
Светът за тебе е обитаем само в кръга на тяхното присъствие, на техните гласове и крачки. Вън от това пространство е хаос, безпътие, непрогледност.
Твоята малка човешка самотност е много по-голяма от огромната самота на планината.
Те живеят интензивно, с пределна пълнота.
Твоята същност е изпразнена.
Забравят те. Могат без тебе.
А ти не можеш без тях.
Излишен си. Не съществуваш.
Ти гониш не тях, а себе си.
Дори когато те укоряват, осмиват, отричат — пак потвърждават твоето съществование.
Те са „НИЕ“. Ти си сам, „АЗ“.
Те са всичко, заедно.
Ти си нищо без тях.
Ние
Ние, групата, сме особено същество.
Почти не мислим за тебе, наказвайки те за закъснението и отсъствието.
Ако мислим и обсъждаме случая, би било още по-голямо наказание за тебе. И ти знаеш това.
Когато сме далече от погледа ти, изведнъж ни виждаш в цялост, сякаш ни откриваш.
Движим се в колона по един. Покорителите на височината. Опитай се да ни настигнеш!
Нозете ни в груби туристически обуща оставят отпечатъци по прясно навалелия сняг. Напредваме в редица на определено разстояние един от друг. Всеки вдълбава по-дълбоко следите на предидущия.
Твоето място е попълнено. Заето е от другиго. А щом изгубиш мястото си тук, в редицата, къде е твоето място в света?
Претъпканите раници още не ни тежат. Младежки лица, заруменели от жизнерадост. Усещаме собствената си руменина като грейка извътре.
Обща кръв тече в групата ни. Докато не ни догониш, няма да се засмееш. Ще бъдеш бледа, плашлива, откъсната от притока на силната кръв.
Ние сме завладени от планинското притегляне, обратно на земното, не надолу, а нагоре. Може би това е древният стремеж да се противопоставим на земното притегляне.
Неусетно снегът попива петната, пушека и отровите, напълнили душата ни, и ни пречиства.
Разкършваме снаги, сякаш дълго сме били държани вързани и най-после сме пуснати на свобода.
Когато планината побелее, имаме опияняващото чувство, че за пръв път стъпваме тук. Снегът излъхва първичност.
Дишаме дълбоко с пълна гръд. До вчера сме били пръснати, раздалечени, удавени в мътните бетонни кладенци на града. Сега сме събрани, НИЕ. Едно яко, самоуверено същество, което не се спира пред никаква преграда. Всемогъщо в своята съвкупност, непроходимо за другиго отвън. Чуждият не е същество, а елемент. Не се допуска.
Събирането ни и затварянето в кръга на групата ние чувствуваме като освобождение.
Освобождение от състоянието „нащрек“, което държи винаги стегната в бодлива тел единицата: да се ориентира сама за посоките сред разнопосочния свят, да съобразява, да не пропуща, да се брани откъм гърба. И най-трудното: да не разхлабва самоконтрола.
Прераснем ли в НИЕ, отговорността се разпределя и ни олеква. Поемаме си дъх.
Ех, трябва да се спазва дисциплината. Но то е къде по-леко от самодисциплината.
Безгрижие — това е групова добродетел.
Под стъпките ни набъбват планините. Само небето над нас и бездната под нас.
Един общ устрем ни сплотява. Вървим един зад друг, съединени чрез планината. С отмерена походка, която излъчва първична наслада от самото вървене.”
― Blaga Dimitrova, Лавина

“The truth was much more beautiful.”
― Alejo Carpentier, The Lost Steps

“Intolerance of others’ views (no matter how ignorant or incoherent they may be) is not simply wrong; in a world where there is no right or wrong, it is worse: it is a sign you are embarrassingly unsophisticated or, possibly, dangerous.”
― Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

“Each of us is born with a box of matches inside us but we can't strike them all by ourselves”
― Laura Esquivel, Like Water for Chocolate

“My soul is a hidden orchestra; I know not what instruments, what fiddlestrings and harps, drums and tamboura I sound and clash inside myself. All I hear is the symphony.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

“Freedom is the possibility of isolation. You are free if you can withdraw from people, not having to seek them out for the sake of money, company, love, glory or curiosity, none of which can thrive in silence and solitude. If you can't live alone, you were born a slave. You may have all the splendours of the mind and the soul, in which case you're a noble slave, or an intelligent servant, but you're not free. And you can't hold this up as your own tragedy, for your birth is a tragedy of Fate alone. Hapless you are, however, if life itself so oppresses you that you're forced to become a slave. Hapless you are if, having been born free, with the capacity to be isolated and self-sufficient, poverty should force you to live with others.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

“Once we're able to see this world as an illusion and a phantasm, then we can see everything that happens to us as a dream, as something that pretended to exist while we were sleeping. And we will become subtly and profoundly indifferent towards all of life's setbacks and calamities. Those who die turned a corner, which is why we've stopped seeing them; those who suffer pass before us like a nightmare, if we feel, or like an unpleasant daydream, if we think. And even our own suffering won't be more than this nothingness.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

“I’m riding a tram and, as is my habit, slowly absorbing every detail of the people around me. By ‘detail’ I mean things, voices, words. In the dress of the girl directly in front of me, for example, I see the material it’s made of, the work involved in making it – since it’s a dress and not just material – and I see in the delicate embroidery around the neck the silk thread with which it was embroidered and all the work that went into that. And immediately, as if in a primer on political economy, I see before me the factories and all the different jobs: the factory where the material was made; the factory that made the darker coloured
thread that ornaments with curlicues the neck of the dress’ and I see the different workshops in the factories, the machines, the workmen, the seamstresses. My eyes’ inward gaze even penetrates into the offices, where I see the managers trying to keep calm and the figures set out in the account books, but that’s not all: beyond that I see into the domestic lives of all those who spend their working hours in these factories and offices...A whole world unfolds before my eyes all because the regularly irregular dark green edging to a pale green dress worn by the girl in front of me of whom I see only her brown neck.

‘A whole way of life lies before me.
I sense the loves, the secrets, the souls of all those who worked just so that this woman in front of me on the tram should wear around her mortal neck the sinuous banality of a thread of dark green silk on a background of light green cloth.
I grow dizzy. The seats on the tram, of fine, strong cane, carry me to distant regions, divide into industries, workmen, houses, lives, realities, everything.
I leave the tram exhausted, like a sleepwalker, having lived a whole life.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

“Everything that surrounds us becomes part of us, it seeps into us with every experience of the flesh and of life and, like the web of a great Spider, binds us subtly to what is near, ensnares us in a fragile cradle of slow death, where we lie rocking in the wind.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

“Let’s act like sphinxes, however falsely, until we reach the point of no longer knowing who we are. For we are, in fact, false sphinxes, with no idea of what we are in reality. The only way to be in agreement with life is to disagree with ourselves. Absurdity is divine.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

“And in the depths of my soul — the only reality of the moment — there is an intense, invisible pain, a sadness like the sound of someone weeping in a dark room.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet: The Complete Edition

“To feel everything in every way; to be able to think with the emotions and feel with the mind; not to desire much except with the imagination; to suffer with haughtiness; to see clearly so as to write accurately; to know oneself through diplomacy and dissimulation; to become naturalized as a different person, with all the necessary documents; in short, to use all sensations but only on the inside, peeling them all down to God and then wrapping everything up again and putting it back in the shop window like the sales assistant I can see from here with the small tins of a new brand of shoe polish.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

“Isn’t love at least a means of possessing ourselves through our sensations? Isn’t it at least a way of dreaming vividly, and therefore more gloriously, the dream that we exist?”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

“On the other side sit we — the errand boy from around the corner, the unruly playwright William Shakespeare, the barber who tells stories, the schoolmaster John Milton, the shop assistant, the vagabond Dante Alighieri, those whom death either forgets or consecrates and whom life forgot and never consecrated.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet: The Complete Edition

“We all love each other, and the lie is the kiss we exchange.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet: The Complete Edition

“Whoever lives like me doesn’t die: he terminates, wilts, devegetates. The place where he was remains without him being there; the street where he walked remains without him being seen on it; the house where he lived is inhabited by not-him. That’s all, and we call it nothing; but not even this tragedy of negation can be staged to applause, for we don’t even know for sure if it’s nothing, we, these vegetable manifestations of both truth and life, dust on both the outside and the inside of the panes, grandchildren of Destiny and stepchildren of God, who married Eternal Night when she was widowed by the Chaos that fathered us.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

“It’s like being intoxicated with inertia, drunk but with no enjoyment in the drinking or in the drunkenness.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet