Antonia > Antonia's Quotes

“I hope nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis

“A man needs a little madness, or else... he never dares cut the rope and be free.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis

“Since we cannot change reality, let us change the eyes which see reality.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis

“Architecture has its own realm. It has a special physical relationship with life. I do not think of it primarily as either a message or a symbol, but as an envelope and background for life which goes on in and around it, a sensitive container for the rhythm of footsteps on the floor, for the concentration of work, for the silence of sleep.”
― Peter Zumthor, Thinking Architecture

“True teachers are those who use themselves as bridges over which they invite their students to cross; then, having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create their
own.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis

“Как ще повярват невярващите какви чудеса може да стори вярата?
Те забравят, че душата на човека става всемогъща, когато бъде овладяна от една велика идея. Обхваща те страх, когато след горчив опит разбереш, че вътре в нас съществува една сила, която може да надвиши силите на човека; обхваща те страх, защото от онзи миг, в който разбереш, че тази сила съществува, вече не можеш да намериш оправдание за дребнавите си или малодушни постъпки, за пропиления си живот, за който хвърляш вината на другите; знаеш вече, че ти, не съдбата, не орисията, нито хората около теб, ти единствен носиш цялата отговорност, каквото и да правиш, какъвто и да станеш.
И тогава се срамуваш да се смееш, срамуваш се да се присмиваш, ако някоя пламенна душа се стреми към невъзможното.
И ти съзнаваш вече съвсем ясно, че ценността на човека се състои в това: да търси и да знае, че търси невъзможното; и да бъде убеден, че ще го постигне, защото знае, че ако не прояви малодушие, ако не послуша това, което му нашепва разумът, а стиска зъби и продължава да преследва невъзможното убедено, упорито, тогава става чудото, което безкрилият ум никога не би могъл да проумее: невъзможното става възможно.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis

“Everything in the world was in precarious balance, pure risk, and those who didn’t agree to take the risk wasted away in a corner, without getting to know life.”
― Elena Ferrante, The Story of a New Name

“Един ден си забраних да се извинявам за неща, които не само че никого не нараняват, но и на друг не влизат в работата. Побеляването на косата ми, гражданското ми състояние, празната кесия, античният модел телефон и изборът ми на какво да се радвам не подлежат на ничий пряк или косвен контрол. Няма кой да ми попречи да се обичам. Понякога работя по толкова часове, колкото се наложи - 21 например. Цяла нощ, периодично заспивам върху клавиатурата. Понякога обаче се вдигам и отивам на кино по обяд. Е, и? На мен ми е добре, сенките под очите са мои, когато се сецна, боли моят кръст. Животът ми е посветен на това да се занимавам с любов с неща, които ме радват, и да отстранявам пречките от пътя към тях за себе си и другите. Не злословя, не завиждам, не се налагам, не се меря с никого. Колкото мога, толкова правя, това ми е мярката. Обичам да се възхищавам, любознателна съм, научих, че светът е пълен с новости, а животът е много къс - пълня си времето с обич, да не съм луда да правя друго?”
― Neva Micheva, Куфарът на брат ми: истории за пътя

“- Не бой се, миличка. Ние сме от хората, които оцеляват при всякакви положения. Какво ли не ни е идвало до главата: болести, войни, атентати... Ако ни чака мир, ще преживеем и него!”
― Etgar Keret, The Seven Good Years

“Over a long period of time, the main force in favor of greater equality has been the diffusion of knowledge and skills.”
― Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century

“Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else.”
― Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

“Perhaps everything lies in knowing what words to speak, what actions to perform, and in what order and rhythm; or else someone's gaze, answer, gesture is enough; it is enough for someone to do something for the sheer pleasure of doing it, and for his pleasure to become the pleasure of others: at that moment, all spaces change, all heights, distances; the city is transfigured, becomes crystalline, transparent as a dragonfly.”
― Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

“Marco Polo describes a bridge, stone by stone.
'But which is the stone that supports the bridge?' Kublai Khan asks.
'The bridge is not supported by one stone or another,' Marco answers, 'but by the line of the arch that they form.'
Kublai Khan remains silent, reflecting. Then he adds: 'Why do you speak to me of the stones? It is only the arch that matters to me.'
Polo answers: 'Without stones there is no arch.”
― Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

“I sense that the thing I am seeking is higher than love and higher than the joy of life and higher than science and glory and higher even than starts. Don’t keep my wings tied in Your embrace.
You are only a shadow and only a smile in the great journey of my soul. Your eyes are the two clear springs where my thoughts came to drink and rest for a moment. And between Your breasts hides the soft pillow where I slept for a moment in order to waken again. Don’t hold me bound. The enigma is not hidden in Your Lions nor in Your enormous eyes. And Your arms are small and weak and do not embrace my entire soul. There is a magnet above the stars that pulls me. And my entire body shudders, magnetized by the Great Nostalgia and the Great Longing. Someone is pulling at me from the stars. Do not hold me bound. The thing I am seeking is higher than love and higher than the joy of life.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Serpent and Lily: A Novella with a Manifesto: The Sickness of the Age

“Leave, instead. Get away for good, far from the life we’ve lived since birth. Settle in well-organized lands where everything really is possible. I had fled, in fact. Only to discover, in the decades to come, that I had been wrong, that it was a chain with larger and larger links: the neighborhood was connected to the city, the city to Italy, Italy to Europe, Europe to the whole planet. And this is how I see it today: it’s not the neighborhood that’s sick, it’s not Naples, it’s the entire earth, it’s the universe, or universes. And shrewdness means hiding and hiding from oneself the true state of things.”
― Elena Ferrante, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay

“I believe that books, once they are written, have no need of their authors. If they have something to say, they will sooner or later find readers; if not, they won’t. There are plenty of examples. I very much love those mysterious volumes, both ancient and modern, that have no definite author but have had and continue to have an intense life of their own. They seem to me a sort of nighttime miracle, like the gifts of the Befana, which I waited for as a child. I went to bed in great excitement and in the morning I woke up and the gifts were there, but no one had seen the Befana. True miracles are the ones whose makers will never be known; they are the very small miracles of the secret spirits of the home or the great miracles that leave us truly astonished. I still have this childish wish for marvels, large or small, I still believe in them.”
― Elena Ferrante

“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

“There are certain emotions in your body that not even your best friend can sympathize with, but you will find the right film or the right book, and it will understand you.”
― Bjork

“Construction is the art of making a meaningful whole out of many parts. Buildings are witnesses to the human ability to construct concrete things. I believe that the real core of all architectural work lies in the act of construction. At the point in time concrete materials are assembled and erected, the architecture we have been looking for becomes part of the real world.”
― Peter Zumthor

“She also demanded of me that, in my art, it should be real passion and not machinery that moved the branches. That was a major gift, the greatest of her bequests.”
― Magda Szabó, The Door

“There was a time when I experienced architecture without thinking about it. Sometimes I can almost feel a particular door handle in my hand, a piece of metal shaped like the back of a spoon. I used to take hold of it when I went into my aunt's garden. That door handle still seems to me like a special sign of entry into a world of different moods and smells. I remember the sound of the gravel under my feet, the soft gleam of the waxed oak staircase, I can hear the heavy front door closing behind me as I walk along the dark corridor and enter the kitchen, the only really brightly lit room in the house.”
― Peter Zumthor

“Details, when they are successful, are not mere decoration. They do not distract or entertain. They lead to an understanding of the whole of which they are an inherent part.”
― Peter Zumthor

“If a work of architecture consists of forms and contents that combine to create a strong fundamental mood powerful enough to affect us, it may possess the qualities of a work of art. This art has, however, nothing to do with interesting configurations or originality. It is concerned with insights and understanding, and above all truth. Perhaps poetry is unexpected truth. It lives in stillness. Architecture's artistic task is to give this still expectancy a form. The building itself is never poetic. At most, it may possess subtle qualities, which, at certain moments, permit us to understand something that we were never able to understand in quite this way before.”
― Peter Zumthor, Thinking Architecture

“I believe that architecture today needs to reflect on the task and possibilities which are inherently its own. Architecture is not a vehicle or a symbol for things that do not belong to its essence. In a society that celebrates the inessential, architecture can put up a resistance, counteract the waste of forms and meanings, and speak its own language.”
― Peter Zumthor, Thinking Architecture

“Is it not better for a man never to have been born?"
"Certaintly not" The response was brisk. "Just to be able to study the sky is reason enough to be alive."
"Unfortunately, I can't see the sky."
"Then listen to music.”
― Gore Vidal, Creation

“И чувствата ми получават епилептичен припадък. А на повърхността не се вижда нищо. Кожата е гладка, лицето – спокойно, ръцете – отпуснати, но отвътре всичко ври, пени се, руши, разбива и бучи, и гласните ми струни могат да произведат вик, който ще разцепи галактиката.”
― Edo Popović, Oči

“Накратко, аз съм съвсем нормално ненормален, напълно лишен от амбиции в това отношение, скромно и непретенциозно чалнат.”
― Edo Popović, Oči

“Седим в кафето в началото на улица "Прерадовичева" и пием бира. Пак беше зима, когато се запознахме, но хоризонтите бяха малко по-различни. Оттогава пътищата ни често се пресичаха.
- Чете ли вестниците, че не сме били славяни? - попита Денис.
- Кой ние? - питам.
- Ами ние, хърватите - отвръща той.
- Това не ме засяга - казвам.
- Как тъй, не те засяга?
- Аз съм монголец.
- Монголец?
- Да, роден съм с монголско петно.
- Глупости - казва Денис - Обаче ето какво мисля аз за хърватите - разбира се, че не сме славяни. Не само, че не сме славяни, ами ние, брато, не сме нищо. Хърватин - изсумтя подигравателно - това не е националност, това е диагноза. Виж само както направихме от държавата си. Цирк, ето както.”
― Edo Popović, Oči

“Прощавайте, че допускам толкова грешки с пишещата машина. То е, първо, защото ръката ми е изгорена, и второ, не знам защо. Имам следната молба. Не ме поправяйте. Пунктуацията е дъхът на изречението, а моето изречение диша така. Дори да ви се струвам странна, уважете ме. И аз самата съм принудена да се уважавам. Писането е проклятие.”
― Clarice Lispector, The Foreign Legion

“В пълното си право съм да се социализирам както и колкото намеря за добре.”
― Philip Roth, Indignation