Valentina > Valentina's Quotes

“I don't go for people who lead full and satisfying lives.”
― Antonio Tabucchi

“Arriving at each new city, the traveler finds again a past of his that he did not know he had: the foreignness of what you no longer are or no longer possess lies in wait for you in foreign, unpossessed places.”
― Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

“For him it was a dark passage which led to nowhere, then to nowhere, then again to nowhere, once again to nowhere, always and forever to nowhere, heavy on the elbows in the earth to nowhere, dark, never any end to nowhere, hung on all time always to unknowing nowhere, this time and again for always to nowhere, now not to be borne once again always and to nowhere, now beyond all bearing up, up, up and into nowhere, suddenly, scaldingly, holdingly all nowhere gone and time absolutely still and they were both there, time having stopped and he felt the earth move out and away from under them.”
― Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls

“That’s the place to get to—nowhere. One wants to wander away from the world’s somewheres, into our own nowhere.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Women in Love

“In trying to be perfect,
He perfected the art of anonymity,
Became imperceptible
And arrived nowhere from nowhere.”
― Dejan Stojanovic

“It's not that he was going nowhere, it's that he'd already arrived.”
― Janet Fitch, White Oleander

“I’m 20 miles from 200 miles from nowhere.”
― Jarod Kintz, At even one penny, this book would be overpriced. In fact, free is too expensive, because you'd still waste time by reading it.

“I don't remember
lighting this cigarette
and I don't remember
if I'm here alone
or waiting for someone.”
― Leonard Cohen, Book of Longing

“Avoid the flourish. Do not be afraid to be weak. Do not be ashamed to be tired. You look good when you’re tired. You look like you could go on forever. Now come into my arms. You are the image of my beauty .”
― Leonard Cohen

“You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.”
― Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”
― Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad / Roughing It

“Imagine a city where graffiti wasn't illegal, a city where everybody could draw whatever they liked. Where every street was awash with a million colours and little phrases. Where standing at a bus stop was never boring. A city that felt like a party where everyone was invited, not just the estate agents and barons of big business. Imagine a city like that and stop leaning against the wall - it's wet.”
― Banksy, Wall and Piece

“A lot of people never use their initiative because no-one told them to.”
― Banksy, Wall and Piece

“If you want to say something and have people listen then you have to
wear a mask. If you want to be honest then you have to live a lie.”
― Banksy

“People who get up early in the morning cause war, death and famine.”
― Banksy, Banging Your Head Against a Brick Wall

“All artists are willing to suffer for their work. But why are so few prepared to learn to draw?”
― Banksy, Wall and Piece

“Once upon a time there was a bear and a bee who lived in a wood and were the best of friends. All summer long the bee collected nectar from morning to night while the bear lay on his back basking in the long grass. When winter came the bear realised he had nothing to eat and thought to himself 'I hope that busy little bee will share some of his honey with me.' But the bee was nowhere to be found - he had died of a stress induced coronary disease.”
― Banksy, Wall and Piece

“Music is the melody whose text is the world.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer

“They told me that to make her fall in love, i had to make her laugh. But everytime she laughs, i’m the one who falls in love.”
― Tommaso Ferraris

“This was a cruelty made by history. Long after serfdom had been abolished the land captains exercised their right to flog the peasants for petty crimes. Liberals rightly warned about the psychological effects of this brutality. One physician, addressing the Kazan Medical Society in 1895 said that it 'not only debases but even hardens and brutalizes human nature'. Chekhov, who was also a practising physician, denounced corporal punishment, adding that 'it coarsens and brutalizes not only the offenders but also those who execute the punishments and those who are present at it'.”
― Orlando Figes, A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution, 1891 - 1924

“It was not Marxism that made Lenin a revolutionary but Lenin who made Marxism revolutionary.”
― Orlando Figes, A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution, 1891 - 1924

“You see? In the fairy tales one does as one wants, and in reality one does what one can.”
― Elena Ferrante, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay

“personally I don't trust literature that soothes people's consciences.”
― Antonio Tabucchi, Requiem: A Hallucination

“Like a blazing comet, I've traversed infinite nights, interstellar spaces of the imagination, voluptuousness and fear. I've been a man, a woman, an old person, a little girl, I've been the crowds on the grand boulevards of the capital cities of the West, I've been the serene Buddha of the East, whose calm and wisdom we envy. I've known honor and dishonor, enthusiasm and exhaustion.
...I've been the sun and the moon, and everything because life is not enough.”
― Antonio Tabucchi, Dreams of Dreams and the Last Three Days of Fernando Pessoa

“Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”
― haruki murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

“Whatever it is you're seeking won't come in the form you're expecting.”
― Haruki Marukami

“It's like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

“Silence, I discover, is something you can actually hear.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore