Mehrzad > Mehrzad's Quotes

“Ideas are to objects as constellations are to stars [translated from Trauerspiel, 1928].”
― Walter Benjamin, The Origin of German Tragic Drama

“Perhaps man has a hundred senses, and when he dies only the five senses that we know perish with him, and the other ninety-five remain alive.”
― Anton Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard

“They are all very serious people with stern expressions on their faces. They discuss nothing but important matters and like to philosophize a great deal, while at the same time everyone can see that the workers are detestably fed, sleep without suitable bedding, thirty to forty in a room with bedbugs everywhere, the stench, the dampness, and the moral corruption... Obviously all our fine talk has gone on simply to hoodwink ourselves and other people as well. Show me the day nurseries that they're talking about so much about. And where are the libraries? Why, they just write about nurseries and libraries in novels, while in fact not a single one even exists. What does exist is nothing but dirt, vulgarity, and a barbarian way of life... I dislike these terribly serious faces, they frighten me, and I'm afraid of serious conversations, too. We'd be better off if we all would just shut up for a while!”
― Anton Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard

“My library is an archive of longings.”
― Susan Sontag, As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964-1980

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.”
― Plato

“Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Alarms and Discursions

“All language is but a poor translation.”
― Franz Kafka

“What is the robbing of a bank compared to the founding of a bank?”
― Bertolt Brecht

“No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally – and often far more – worth reading at the age of fifty and beyond.”
― C.S. Lewis

“Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion.”
― Rumi

“It was in Spain that [my generation] learned that one can be right and yet be beaten, that force can vanquish spirit, that there are times when courage is not its own recompense. It is this, doubtless, which explains why so many, the world over, feel the Spanish drama as a personal tragedy.”
― Albert Camus

“My course is set for an uncharted sea.”
― Dante Alighieri

“I read a book one day and my whole life was changed.”
― Orhan Pamuk, The New Life

“My only advice is to stay aware, listen carefully, and yell for help if you need it.”
― Judy Blume

“We live for books. A sweet mission in this world dominated by disorder and decay.”
― Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose

“Do stuff. be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration's shove or society's kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It's all about paying attention. attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. stay eager.”
― Susan Sontag

“What does it matter how many lovers you have if none of them gives you the universe?

”
― Jacques Lacan

“The real is what resists symbolization absolutely.”
― Jacques Lacan, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan: Book 1, Freud's Papers on Technique, 1953-1954

“There is something in you I like more than yourself. Therefore I must destroy you”
― Jacques Lacan

“From that time on, the world was hers for the reading. She would never be lonely again, never miss the lack of intimate friends. Books became her friends and there was one for every mood. There was poetry for quiet companionship. There was adventure when she tired of quiet hours. There would be love stories when she came into adolescence and when she wanted to feel a closeness to someone she could read a biography. On that day when she first knew she could read, she made a vow to read one book a day as long as she lived.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“Those who can't do, teach. And those who can't teach, teach gym.”
― Woody Allen, Annie Hall: Screenplay

“Now I am quietly waiting for
the catastrophe of my personality
to seem beautiful again,
and interesting, and modern.

The country is grey and
brown and white in trees,
snows and skies of laughter
always diminishing, less funny
not just darker, not just grey.

It may be the coldest day of
the year, what does he think of
that? I mean, what do I? And if I do,
perhaps I am myself again.”
― Frank O'Hara, Meditations in an Emergency

“انقلاب، ماحصل تحول و دگردیسی درونی انسانهاست.
از بخش مانیفست هی پیزم ص 104”
― نادر فتوره‌چی, جنبش دانشجویی در آمریکا

“You were once wild here. Don’t let them tame you.”
― Isadora Duncan, Isadora Speaks: Uncollected Writings and Speeches of Isadora Duncan

“Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.”
― Roald Dahl

“I'll belong to libraries wherever I go. Maybe eventually I'll belong to libraries on other planets.”
― Jo Walton, Among Others

“Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it's a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up, and it's a way of making contact with someone else's imagination after a day that's all too real.”
― Nora Ephron

“Some people have a way with words, and other people...oh, uh, not have way.”
― Steve Martin

“Always try to keep a patch of sky above your life.”
― Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way

“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.”
― Frederick Douglass