Patrick Darnell > Patrick's Quotes

“Normally, in anything I do, I'm fairly miserable. I do it, and I get grumpy because there is a huge, vast gulf, this aching disparity, between the platonic ideal of the project that was living in my head, and the small, sad, wizened, shaking, squeaking thing that I actually produce.”
― Neil Gaiman

“I felt once more how simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. Nothing else.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

“This is true happiness: to have no ambition and to work like a horse as if you had every ambition. To live far from men, not to need them and yet to love them. To have the stars above, the land to your left and the sea to your right and to realize of a sudden that in your heart, life has accomplished its final miracle: it has become a fairy tale.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

“God changes his appearance every second. Blessed is the man who can recognize him in all his disguises.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

“If a woman sleeps alone it puts a shame on all men. God has a very big heart, but there is one sin He will not forgive. If a woman calls a man to her bed and he will not go.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

“You can knock on a deaf man's door forever.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

“I was happy, I knew that. While experiencing happiness, we have difficulty in being conscious of it. Only when the happiness is past and we look back on it do we suddenly realize - sometimes with astonishment - how happy we had been.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

“Look, one day I had gone to a little village. An old grandfather of ninety was busy planting an almond tree. ‘What, grandfather!’ I exclaimed. ‘Planting an almond tree?’ And he, bent as he was, turned around and said: ‘My son, I carry on as if I should never die.’ I replied: ‘And I carry on as if I was going to die any minute.’

Which of us was right, boss?”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

“Life is trouble. Only death is not. To be alive is to undo your belt and *look* for trouble.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

“When everything goes wrong, what a joy to test your soul and see if it has endurance and courage! An invisible and all-powerful enemy—some call him God, others the Devil, seem to rush upon us to destroy us; but we are not destroyed.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

“For I realize today that it is a mortal sin to violate the great laws of nature. We should not hurry, we should not be impatient, but we should confidently obey the eternal rhythm.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

“Happy is the man, I thought, who, before dying, has the good fortune to sail the Aegean sea.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

“Every man has his folly, but the greatest folly of all … is not to have one.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

“the highest point a man can attain is not Knowledge, or Virtue, or Goodness, or Victory, but something even greater, more heroic and more despairing: Sacred Awe!”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

“كلّ ماينبغي لكي تشعر بأن هذه هي السعادة، هو أن يكون لك قلب راض ونفس قانعة”
― نيكوس كازانتزاكي, Zorba the Greek

“إن لكل انسان حماقاته ، لكن الحماقة الكبرى في رأيي هي ألا يكون للإنسان حماقات.”
― نيكوس كازانتزاكي, Zorba the Greek

“إن في جسدك روحاً، ويجب أن تشفق عليها، أعطها شيئاً لتأكله أيها الرئيس، فإذا لم تطعمها تركتك في نصف الطريق”
― نيكوس كازانتزاكي, Zorba the Greek

“All those who actually live the mysteries of life haven't the time to write, and all those who have the time don't live them! D'you see?”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

“يا لمرارة الافتراق ببطء عن الأحباء! من الأفضل الانقطاع عنهم مرّةً واحدة، والعودة إلى الوحدة.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

“Free yourself from one passion to be dominated by another and nobler one. But is not that, too, a form of slavery? To sacrifice oneself to an idea, to a race, to God? Or does it mean that the higher the model the longer the longer the tether of our slavery?”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

“ما أمتع الحزن الذي يملأ النفس من مرأى المطر الهادئ المتصل! إن جميع الذكريات المريرة، الراسبة في أعماق النقس تطفو حينئذ فوق السطح، ذكرى الاصدقاء الذين ذهبوا، والابتسامات الحلوة التي ذبلت، والآمال العزيزة التي فقدت اجنحتها”
― نيكوس كازانتزاكي, Zorba the Greek

“هناك أسوأ ممن هو أصم , وهو الذي لا يريد أن يسمع”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

“السعادة هي أن تؤدي واجبك ، وكلّما
كان الواجب أصعب ، كانت السعادة أعظم.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

“Every man has his folly, but the greatest folly of all, in my view, is not to have one.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

“When shall I at last retire into solitude alone, without companions, without joy and without sorrow, with only the sacred certainty that all is a dream? When, in my rags—without desires—shall I retire contented into the mountains? When, seeing that my body is merely sickness and crime, age and death, shall I—free, fearless, and blissful—retire to the forest? When? When, oh when?”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

“إنّ الحسابات الطيبة تخلق الأصدقاء الطيبين”
― نيكوس كازانتزاكي, Zorba the Greek

“Once more there sounded within me the terrible warning that there is only one life for all men, that there is only one life for all men, that there is no other and that all that can be enjoyed must be enjoyed here. In eternity no other chance will be given to us.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

“With the truth so dull and depressing, the only working alternative is wild bursts of madness and filigree.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72