Quotes from Being There

Jerzy Kosiński ·  160 pages

Rating: (8.8K votes)


“Life is a state of mind.”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from Being There


“- Growth has its season. There are spring and summer, but there are also fall and winter. And then spring and summer again. As long as the roots are not severed, all is well and all be well.”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from Being There


“In a garden, things grow . . . but first, they must wither; trees have to lose their leaves in order to put forth new leaves, and to grow thicker and stronger and taller. Some trees die, but fresh saplings replace them. Gardens need a lot of care. But if you love your garden, you don’t mind working in it, and waiting. Then in the proper season you will surely see it flourish.”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from Being There


“There were innumerable selves that he evoked in her.”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from Being There


“Chance waited patiently until she stopped.”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from Being There



“What about the war?' the young woman sitting on Chance's left said, leaning close to him.

'The war? Which war?' said Chance. 'I've seen many wars on TV.'

'Alas,' the woman said, 'in this country, when we dream of reality television wakes us. To millions the war, I suppose, is just another TV program. But out there, at the front, real men are giving their lives.”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from Being There


About the author

Jerzy Kosiński
Born place: in Łódź, Poland
Born date June 14, 1933
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Popular quotes

“The stars in their infinite peace seemed to pour their healing light into me. I thought of captives in prison, the sick and the suffering from the beginning of time who had looked to these stars for strength. What was my little sorrow to the centuries of pain which those stars had watched? So near they seemed, so compassionate. My bitter hurt seemed to grow small and drop away. If I must go on alone, I should still have silence and the high stars to walk with me.”
― Anzia Yezierska, quote from Bread Givers


“Silently evolving here was the attitude before God that Paul explored in his theology of justification: These are people who do not flaunt their achievements before God. They do not stride into God’s presence as if they were partners able to engage with him on an equal footing; they do not lay claim to a reward for what they have done. These are people who know that their poverty also has an interior dimension; they are lovers who simply want to let God bestow his gifts upon them and thereby to live in inner harmony with God’s nature and word. The saying of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux about one day standing before God with empty hands, and holding them open to him, describes the spirit of these poor ones of God: They come with empty hands; not with hands that grasp and clutch, but with hands that open and give and thus are ready to receive from God’s bountiful goodness. Because this is the case, there is no opposition between Matthew, who speaks of the poor in spirit, and Luke, in whose Gospel the Lord addresses the “poor” without further qualification.”
― Pope Benedict XVI, quote from Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration


“know.” She took a breath, and suddenly I liked her smile a great deal. “Maybe you are.”
― Robert Crais, quote from L.A. Requiem


“We thank Him less by words than by the serene happiness of silent acceptance. It is our emptiness in the presence of His reality, our silence in the presence of His infinitely rich silence, our joy in the bosom of the serene darkness in which His light holds us absorbed, it is all this that praises Him.”
― Thomas Merton, quote from New Seeds of Contemplation


“من الخصائص اللافتة للنظر للمواقف الثورية أن الأحداث التي تدفع الناس إلى القيام بأعظم المخاطرات و التي تؤدي إلى إنهيار الحكومات، نادراً ما تكون هي الأحداث الكبيرة التي يصفها المؤرخون اللاحقون بالأسباب الرئيسية للثورة، و إنما هي أحداث صغيرة تبدو عارض.”
― Francis Fukuyama, quote from The End of History and the Last Man


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