Status Updates From زوربا اليوناني

lara-grace actually reading her book for book club and in good time too? who’d have thunk it?

"I nearly wept. All that Zorba said was true. As a child I had been full of mad ímpulses, superhuman desires, I was not content with the world. Gradually, as time went by, I grew calmer. I set limits, separated the possible from the impossible, the human from the divine, I held my kite tightly, so that it should not escape."

"Alone by the dying fïre, I weighed Zorba's words—they were rich in meaning and had a warm earthy smell. You felt they came up from the depths of his being and that they still had a human warmth. My words were made of paper. They came down from my head, scarcely splashed by a spot of blood. If they had any value at all it was to that mere spot of blood they owed it."

"Listen, little one: neither the seven storeys of heaven nor the seven storeys of the earth are enough to contain God; but a man's heart can contain him. So be very careful, Alexis—and may my blessing go with you—never to wound a man's heart!"

"What a strange machine man is!" he said, with astonishment. "You fill him with bread, wine, fish, radishes, and out of him come sighs, laughter and dreams. Like a factory. I'm sure there's a sort of talking-film cinema in our heads."

"The idea's everything," he said. "Have you faith? Then a splinter from an old door becomes a sacred relic. Have you no faith? Then the whole Holy Cross itself becomes an old doorpost to you."

"All those who actually live the mysteries of life haven't the time to write, and all those who have the time don't live them!"

"I knew that eternity is each minute that passes."

"What is your favorite dish, grandad?"
"All of them, my son. It's a great sin to say this is good and that is bad."
"Why? Can't we make a choice?"
"No, of course we can't."
"Why not?"
"Because there are people who are hungry."

“I did not know whether to be angry, or laugh, or just admire this primitive man who simply cracked life's shell—logic, morality, honesty—and went straight to its very substance. All the little virtues which are so useful are lacking in him. All he has is an uncomfortable, dangerous virtue which is hard to satisfy and which urges him continually and irresistibly towards the utmost limits, towards the abyss.”

“Why shouldn’t I be bold? As I say, nobody knew me, I was absolutely free.”

“We are only at the beginning; we have neither eaten, drunk, nor loved enough; we have not yet lived.”