Quote collection
358 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"He spent six hours examining things, trying to find a difference from their appearance on the previous day in the hope of discovering in them some change that would reveal the passage of time."
"The year I turned ninety, I wanted to give myself the gift of a night of wild love with an adolescent virgin."
"She sensed it, saw my eyes wet with tears, and only then must have discovered I was no longer the man I had been, and I endured her glance with a courage I never thought I had."
"Lost in the solitude of his immense power, he began to lose direction."
"we had made love without love, half-dressed most of the time and always in the dark so we could imagine ourselves as better than we were."
"Although some men who were easy with their words said that it was worth sacrificing one’s life for a night of love with such an arousing woman, the truth was that no one made any effort to do so. Perhaps, not only to attain her but also to conjure away her dangers, all that was needed was a feeling as primitive and as simple as that of love, but that was the only thing that did not occur to anyone."
"A great commotion immobilized her in her center of gravity, planted her in her place, and her defensive will was demolished by the irresistible anxiety to discover what the orange bells and whistles and the invisible globes on the other side of death were like."
"Because he had not done what she, with her heart in her mouth, had hoped he would do, which was to be a man: deny everything, and swear on his life it was not true, and grow indignant at the false accusation, and shout curses at this ill-begotten society that did not hesitate to trample on one's honor, and remain imperturbable even when forced with crushing proofs of his disloyalty."
"A famous writer who wants to continue writing has to be constantly defending himself against fame."
"This was his world, he said to himself, the sad, oppressive world that God had provided for him, and he was responsible to it."
"I want the same one, the way she always is, without failures, without fights, without bad memories."
"El mundo habrá acabado de joderse -dijo entonces- el día en que los hombres viajen en primera clase y la literatura en el vagón de carga."
"his examination revealed that he had no fever, no pain anywhere, and that his only concrete feeling was an urgent desire to die. All that was needed was shrewd questioning...to conclude once again that the symptoms of love were the same as those of cholera."
"the bells of glory that announced to the world the good news that the uncountable time of eternity had come to an end"
"Jose Palacios, his oldest servant, found him floating naked with his eyes open in the purifying waters of his bath and thought he had drowned."
"There had never been a death so foretold."
"Dr Urbino did not agree: in his opinion a Liberal president was exactly the same as a Conservative president, but not as well dressed."
"The first of the line is tied to a tree and the last is being eaten by the ants ."
"I plead youth as a mitigating circumstance."
"He is ugly and sad, but he is all love."