Suleiman > Suleiman's Quotes

“A man is a critic when he cannot be an artist, in the same way that a man becomes an informer when he cannot be a soldier”
― Gustave Flaubert

“Very early in my life it was too late.”
― Marguerite Duras, The Lover

“Muy pronto en mi vida fue demasiado tarde.”
― 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

“He says he’s lonely, horribly lonely because of this love he feels for her. She says she’s lonely too. She doesn’t say why.”
― Marguerite Duras, The Lover

“I know it's not clothes that make women beautiful or otherwise, nor beauty care, nor expensive creams, nor the distinction of costliness of their finery. I know the problem lies elsewhere. I don't know where. I only know it isn't where women think.”
― Marguerite Duras, The Lover

“Shall I tell you the secret of the whole world? It is that we have only known the back of the world. We see everything from behind, and it looks brutal. That is not a tree, but the back of a tree. That is not a cloud, but the back of a cloud. Cannot you see that everything is stooping and hiding a face? If we could only get round in front--”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday

“Always be comic in a tragedy. What the deuce else can you do?”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday

“Your offer," he said, "is far too idiotic to be declined.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare

“The Iliad is only great because all life is a battle, The Odyssey because all life is a journey, The Book of Job because all life is a riddle.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“Moderate strength is shown in violence, supreme strength is shown in levity.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare

“I am more than a devil; I am a man. I can do the one thing which Satan himself cannot do— I can die.”
― Chesterton G. K. (Gilbert Keith), The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare

“You've got that eternal idiotic idea that if anarchy came it would come from the poor. Why should it? The poor have been rebels, but they have never been anarchists; they have more interest than anyone else in there being some decent government. The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all. Aristocrats were always anarchists”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare

“The most poetical thing in the world is not being sick.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
― George Orwell, Animal Farm

“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
― George Orwell, Animal Farm

“Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals. He sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself.”
― George Orwell, Animal Farm

“Four legs good, two legs bad.”
― George Orwell, Animal Farm

“Several of them would have protested if they could have found the right arguments.”
― George Orwell, Animal Farm

“Man serves the interests of no creature except himself.”
― George Orwell, Animal Farm

“He succeeded in being considered totally uninteresting. People left him alone. And that was all he wanted.”
― Patrick Suskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

“Odors have a power of persuasion stronger than that of words, appearances, emotions, or will. The persuasive power of an odor cannot be fended off, it enters into us like breath into our lungs, it fills us up, imbues us totally. There is no remedy for it.”
― Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

“For people could close their eyes to greatness, to horrors, to beauty, and their ears to melodies or deceiving words. But they couldn't escape scent. For scent was a brother of breath. Together with breath it entered human beings, who couldn't defend themselves against it, not if they wanted to live. And scent entered into their very core, went directly to their hearts, and decided for good and all between affection and contempt, disgust and lust, love and hate. He who ruled scent ruled the hearts of men.”
― Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

“…in that moment, as he saw and smelled how irresistible its effect was and how with lightning speed it spread and made captives of the people all around him—in that moment his whole disgust for humankind rose up again within him and completely soured his triumph, so that he felt not only no joy, but not even the least bit of satisfaction. What he had always longed for—that other people should love him—became at the moment of his achievement unbearable, because he did not love them himself, he hated them. And suddenly he knew that he had never found gratification in love, but always only in hatred—in hating and in being hated.”
― Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

“He possessed the power. He held it in his hand. A power stronger than the power of money or the power of terror or the power of death: the invincible power to command the love of mankind. There was only one thing that power could not do: it could not make him able to smell himself.”
― Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

“Porque los hombres podían cerrar los ojos ante la grandeza, ante el horror, ante la belleza, y cerrar los oídos a las melodías o las palabras seductoras, pero no podían sustraerse al perfume. Porque el perfume era hermano del aliento. Con él se introducía en los hombres y si éstos querían vivir, tenían que respirarlo. Y una vez en su interior, el perfume iba directo al corazón y allí decidía de modo categórico entre inclinación y desprecio, aversión y atracción, amor y odio. Quien dominaba los olores, dominaba el corazón de los hombres.”
― Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

“The only good human being is a dead one.”
― George Orwell, Animal Farm

“No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?”
― George Orwell, Animal Farm

“If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”
― George Orwell, Animal Farm