Nautes03

“I discovered that my obsession for having each thing in the right place, each subject at the right time, each word in the right style, was not the well-deserved reward of an ordered mind but just the opposite: a complete system of pretense invented by me to hide the disorder of my nature. I discovered that I am not disciplined out of virtue but as a reaction to my negligence, that I appear generous in order to conceal my meanness, that I pass myself off as prudent because I am evil-minded, that I am conciliatory in order not to succumb to my repressed rage, that I am punctual only to hide how little I care about other people’s time. I learned, in short, that love is not a condition of the spirit but a sign of the zodiac.”
― Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Memories of My Melancholy Whores

“제가 이 글을 통해서 이미 오래 전에 흘러가버린 우리들의 청춘 시절을 다시 떠올려 차근차근 정리해보는 것은 비록 글쓰는 동안만이라도 당신과 함께 호흡을 나눌 수 있기 때문이요, 그 속에서나마 우리가 이별을 모르는 세상에서 함께 영원히 살아 있을 수 있다는 간절한 생각 때문입니다. 또 이 문필 작업이 그 뜨거웠던 당신의 순정에 대한 나의 작은 보답이 될 수도 있지 않을까 하는 어줍잖은 마음도 전혀 없지는 않았습니다.
그런 심정으로 추억의 조각들을 하나하나 글로 풀어내다보니 지난날의 아기자기했던 추억들이 마치 옹달샘에 맑은 물이 고이듯 졸졸 고이고 봄풀이 돋아나듯 소록소록 돋아나서, 저는 어느 틈에 우리들 청춘의 생생한 필름을 혼자서 돌려보는 기막힌 환상에 빠지곤 했습니다. 한마디로 행복한 시간이었습니다.”
― 김자야, 내 사랑 백석

“You only learn when you give your whole being to something. When you give your whole being to mathematics,you learn; but when you are in a state of contradiction, when you do not want to learn but are forced to learn, then it becomes merely a process of accumulation. To learn is like reading a novel with innumerable characters; it requires your full attention, not contradictory attention.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, The Book of Life: Daily Meditations with Krishnamurti

“The adolescents of my generation, greedy for life, forgot in body and soul about their hopes for the future until reality taught them that tomorrow was not what they had dreamed, and they discovered nostalgia.”
― Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Memories of My Melancholy Whores