Neil

“Look, one day I had gone to a little village. An old grandfather of ninety was busy planting an almond tree. ‘What, grandfather!’ I exclaimed. ‘Planting an almond tree?’ And he, bent as he was, turned around and said: ‘My son, I carry on as if I should never die.’ I replied: ‘And I carry on as if I was going to die any minute.’

Which of us was right, boss?”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

“Книгата е светата обител на думите, а думите са светата обител на мислите, които по такъв начин могат да бъдат посетени. Човек, ако не чете, тоя човек я кара с петстотин думи, останалата част от езика за него е тера инкогнита, където дори на екскурзия не е ходил...”
― Петя Караколева, Къщата сутрин

“What are you looking at, grandfather?" he asked with curiosity.
The old man raised his head and smiled sadly. "At my life flowing and disappearing, son, flowing and disappearing."
"Don't worry, grandfather, it knows where it is going–toward the sea, everyone's life flows toward the sea."
The old man sighed. "Yes, my son, that is why the sea is salty—from the many tears."
He turned back to the flowing stream and did not speak again.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, The Fratricides

“In the slanting light of late autumn, the gestures and bodies of people are more expressive the less meaning they have. Men stand on street corners staring at the emptiness of the day. They spit on the sidewalk and smoke cigarettes. That's the present. ...Time, approaching from afar, is like the air that someone else has already breathed.”
― Andrzej Stasiuk