Machado De Assis Quotes

“Não podia tirar os olhos daquela criatura de quatorze anos, alta, forte e cheia, apertada em um vestido de chita, meio desbotado. Os cabelos grossos, feitos em duas tranças, com as pontas atadas uma à outra, à moda do tempo, desciam-lhe pelas costas. Morena, olhos claros e grandes, nariz reto e comprido, tinha a boca fina e o queixo largo. As mãos, a despeito de alguns ofícios rudes, eram curadas com amor, não cheiravam a sabões finos nem águas de toucador, mas com água do poço e sabão comum trazia-as sem mácula. Calçava sapatos de duraque, rasos e velhos, a que ela mesma dera alguns pontos.”
― Machado de Assis, Dom Casmurro

“E com uma letra bem pequena, lá estava escrito no seu epitáfio: Tentou ser, não conseguiu; tentou ter, não possuiu; tentou continuar, não prosseguiu; e nessa vida de expectativas frustradas tentou até amar… Pois bem, não conseguiu, e aqui está.”
― Machado de Assis, Dom Casmurro

“E, enquanto uma chora, outra ri; é a lei do mundo, meu rico senhor; é a perfeição universal. Tudo chorando seria monótono, tudo rindo cansativo; mas uma boa distribuição de lágrimas e polcas, soluços e sarabandas, acaba por trazer à alma do mundo a variedade necessária, e faz-se o equilíbrio da vida.”
― Machado de Assis, Quincas Borba

“Tristezas não são comigo. Entretanto, em rapaz — quando fiz versos, nunca os fiz senão tristíssimos. As lágrimas que verti então — pretas, porque a tinta era preta — podiam encher este mundo, vale delas.”
― Machado de Assis, Memorial de Aires

“Vadiação é bom costume.”
― Machado de Assis, Memorial de Aires

“Deus, quando quer ser Dante, é maior que Dante.”
― Machado de Assis, Memorial de Aires

“Pain relents sometimes, but it gives way to indifference, which is a dreamless sleep, or to pleasure, which is a bastard pain. Then man, whipped and rebellious, ran ahead of the fatality of things after a nebulous and dodging figure made of remnants, one remnant of the impalpable, another of the improbable, another of the invisible, all sewn together with a precarious stitch by the needle of imagination. And that figure—nothing less than the chimera of happiness — either runs away from him perpetually or lets itself be caught by the hem, and man would clutch it to his breast, and then she would laugh, mockingly, and disappear like an illusion.’’

The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas- Machado de Asis”
― Machado de Assis

“Then I pondered the fact that tight boots are one of the best bits of good fortune on earth, because by making one's feet hurt they give occasion to the pleasure of taking them off. Punish your feet, wretch, then unpunish them and there you have cheap happiness, at the mercy of shoemakers and worthy of Epicurus.’’

The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas- Machado de Asis”
― Machado de Assis

“Capitu, apesar daqueles olhos que o diabo lhe deu... Você já reparou nos olhos dela? São assim de cigana oblíqua e dissimulada. Pois apesar deles, poderia passar, se não fosse a vaidade e a adulação. Oh! A adulação!”
― Machado de Assis, Dom Casmurro

“Um astrólogo contemplava os astros, com tamanha atenção, que caiu num poço. Uma velha da Trácia vendo-o cair, soltou esta exclamação: "Se ele não via o que lhe estava aos pés, para que havia de investigar o que lá fica tão em cima!”
― Machado de Assis, O Astrólogo

“My uncle the canon was quite different. He was full of austerity and purity. Those traits weren't elevating a superior spirit, however, but only compensating for a mediocre one.’’

The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas- Machado de Asis”
― Machado De Asis

“What is important is the general description of the domestic milieu and that has been shown here—vulgarity of character, love of gaudy appearance and clamor, a slackness of will, the rule of whim, and more. Out of that earth and that manure this flower was born.’’

The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas- Machado de Asis”
― Machado de Assis

“The poor thing was suffering cruelly because cancer is indifferent to a person's virtues.’’

The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas- Machado de Asis”
― Machado de Assis

“She was pretty, fresh, she came from the hands of nature full of that sorcery, uncertain and eternal, that an individual passes to another individual for the secret ends of creation.’’

The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas- Machado de Asis”
― Machado de Assis

“There was no Christian resignation or philosophical acceptance in him. It seemed that misery had calloused his soul to the point of taking away the feeling of the mud.’’

The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas- Machado de Asis”
― Machado de Assis

“It must be believed that Dona Placida still couldn't talk when she was born, but if she could have, she might have said to the authors of her days, "Here I am. Why did you call me?' And the sacristan and the sacristaness would naturally have answered her, 'We called you to burn your fingers on pots, your eyes in sewing, to eat poorly or not at all, to go from one place to another in drudgery, getting ill and recovering only to get ill and recover once again, sad now, then desperate, resigned tomorrow, but always with your hands on the pot and your eyes on the sewing until one day you end up in the mire or in the hospital. That's why we called you in a moment of sympathy.'’’

The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas- Machado de Asis”
― Machado de Assis

“If it hadn't been for our love affair, most likely Dona Placida would have ended up like so many other human creatures, from which it can be deduced that vice many times is manure for virtue. And that doesn't prevent virtue from being a fragrant and healthy bloom. My conscience agreed and I went to open the door for Virgilia.”
― Machado de Assis

“Her husband didn't confess the reason for his refusal to me. He told me, too, that it was because of personal business and the serious, convinced face with which I listened to him did honor to human hypocrisy.’’

The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas- Machado de Asis”
― Machado de Assis

“Com a ausência da minha senhora, ele tornou-se o maior casmurro a bordo. E também o maior engolidor de whiskey sour. A tal ponto que resolvi apelidá-lo de Dom Casmurro, em homenagem ao meu colega de letras Machado de Assis, escritor carioca, autor de vários e excelentes livros sobre a arte e prática da masturbação. Abrindo aqui um parêntese, digo que foi esse escritor, um falso vesgo, o pai espiritual de Nabokov, tão pecaminosos eram seus desejos em relação às petizes de Mata-Cavalos. Parece que é esse mesmo o mais evidente traço de união entre todos os homens de bom gosto.”
― Marcos Rey, Memórias de um gigolô