Posts tagged Quote.
Deaf man: If a bomb goes off,
you think, ’ I can’t hear.’
(Don’t enter the dark room,
don’t light a candle,
God might be near.)
Blind man: If there’s a sudden flash,
you think, ‘I’ve gone blind.’
And you start to shine through the boards
of the crypt you’ve become.
Go ahead, then,
go through the door,
light an orange light,
God’s not there anymore.
Tract on the Indivisibility of Love and Fear by Elen Shvarts, translated by J. Kates
There must be a chasm between languages into which all words tumble.
Susan Bernofsky (tr.), Yoko Tawada
Even now, all possible feelings do not yet exist, there are still those that lie beyond our capacity and our imagination. From time to time, when a piece of music no one has ever written or a painting no one has ever painted, or something else impossible to predict, fathom or yet describe takes place, a new feeling enters the world. And then, for the millionth time in the history of feeling, the heart surges and absorbs the impact.
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
I wish I could convey the perfection of a seal slipping into water or a spider monkey swinging from point to point or a lion merely turning its head. But language founders in such seas. Better to picture it in your head if you want to feel it.
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
It’s true: Only the blind can have sex without pain.
It’s true: We’re not blowing kisses to the minaret’s barred window; we’re going to burn down the palace.
It’s true: Adults cry less than children, and have more need to cry.
It’s true: When you care about me, you care about you caring about me. And when I care about you, I care about me caring about you.
It’s true: There’s gold at the end of the rainbow. That’s all there is!
It’s true: I can no longer distinguish my pockets from my rips, my tricks from being tricked.
It’s true: I have been to this place before.
Excerpt from “If the Aging Magician Should Begin to Believe” by Jonathan Safran Foer, included in A Convergence of Birds
Love me, because love doesn’t exist, and I have tried everything that does.
Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
The Hmong have a phrase, hais cuaj txub kaum txub, which means ‘to speak of all kinds of things.’ It is often used at the beginning of an oral narrative as a way of reminding the listeners that the world is full of things that may not seem to be connected but actually are.
from The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman
During the time I waited, a whole species of butterfly may have become extinct, or a large, complex mammal with feelings like mine.
from The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
