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Quotes by Novelist
"For know, dear ones, that every one of us is undoubtedly responsible for all men- and everything on earth, not merely through the general sinfulness of creation, but each one personally for all mankind and every individual man. This knowledge is the crown of life for the monk and for every man. For monks are not a special sort of men, but only what all men ought to be. Only through that knowledge, our heart grows soft with infinite, universal, inexhaustible love. Then every one of you will have the power to win over the whole world by love and to wash away the sins of the world with your tears."
64
"Today's interpretations of religion are often backward and contradict the needs of civilization."
63
"Even the strongest man needs friends."
63
"The difference between tragedy and comedy: Tragedy is something awful happening to somebody else, while comedy is something awful happening to somebody else."
63
"Here we grow the flax and grain; here we raise the meat they eat, and the wool to keep them warm; we cut trees to build their houses and firewood to heat their stoves."
63
"I should never have dreamed of purpose, I am coming to the conclusion that privacy, the small individual lives of men, are preferable to all this inflated macrocosmic activity."
63
"A book is a version of the world. If you do not like it, ignore it; or offer your own version in return."
63
"Religion is boring and alien to me and relates no more than a chimera to what is to me the reality of the spirit."
63
"Her beauty was a weapon. A loaded gun, with the barrel pointed at her own head."
63
"I'll promise to think twice before I take any important step you seriously disapprove of."
63
"I feel I need a holiday, a very long holiday, as I have told you before. Probably a permanent holiday: I don't expect I shall return. in fact, I don't mean to, and I have made all arrangements....I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean: like butter that has been scraped over too much bread. That can't be right. I need a change, or something.'Bilbo'."
63
"The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience."
63
"They say: misfortunes, sufferings...well, if someone said to me right now, this minute: do you want to remain the way you were before captivity, or live through it all over again? For God's sake, captivity again and horsemeat! Once we're thrown off our habitual paths, we think all is lost; but it's only here that the new and the good begins. As long as there's life, there's happiness. There's much, much still to come."
63
"For me, writing something down was the only road out."
62
"The deplorable mania of doubt exhausts me. I doubt about everything, even my doubts."
62
"Bullfighting is the only art in which the artist is in danger of death and in which the degree of brilliance in the performance is left to the fighter's honor."
62
"I would rather make my name than inherit it."
62
"Psychoanalysis pretends to investigate the Unconscious. The Unconscious by definition is what you are not conscious of. But the Analysts already know what's in it - they should, because they put it all in beforehand."
62
"Dinner was made for eating, not for talking."
62
"I never married because there was no need. I have three pets at home which answer the same purpose as a husband. I have a dog which growls every morning, a parrot which swears all afternoon, and a cat that comes home late at night."
62
"I collect human relationships very much the way others collect fine art."
62
"Whatever his secret was, I have learnt one secret too, and namely: that the soul is but a manner of being -- not a constant state -- that any soul may be yours, if you find and follow its undulations. The hereafter may be the full ability of consciously living in any chosen soul, in any number of souls, all of them unconscious of their interchangeable burden."
62
"Did you know, ji,' Zulu offered, 'that the map of Tolkien's Middle earth fits quite well over central England and Wales? Maybe all fairylands are right here, in our midst."
62
"Mento mori-remember death! These are important words. If we kept in mind that we will soon inevitably die, our lives would be completely different. If a person knows that he will die in a half hour, he certainly will not bother doing trivial, stupid, or, especially, bad things during this half hour. Perhaps you have half a century before you die-what makes this any different from a half hour?"
62
"In Kilanga, people knew nothing of things they might have had - a Frigidaire? a washer-dryer combination? Really, they'd sooner imagine a tree that could pull up its feet and go bake bread. It didn't occur to them to feel sorry for themselves."
62
"A man is as free as he chooses to make himself, never an atom freer."
62
"I'd far rather leave a thought behind me than a child. Other people can have children."
62
"Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their own customs, privileges, or beliefs. This state of mind is not common, but it is essential for right thinking..."
62
"As for her hair, or rather hairs, they are too complicated to describe, but one system went down her back, lying in a thick pad there, while another, created for a lighter destiny, rippled around her forehead."
61
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