“We live in an age of reproduction. Most of what makes up our personal picture of the world we have never seen with our own eyes--or rather, we've seen it with our own eyes, but not on the spot: our knowledge comes to us from a distance, we are televiewers, telehearers, teleknowers.”
“Freunde müssen einander verstehen um Freunde zu bleiben. Brüder sind immer Brüder.”
“The demand that we love our neighbor as ourselves contains as an axiom the demand that we shall love ourselves, shall accept ourselves as we were created.”
“Cause and effect are never divided between two people.”
“Oh, this yearning to be white, this yearning to have straight hair, this lifelong striving to be different from the way one is created this great difficulty in accepting oneself, I knew it and saw only my own longing from outside, saw the absurdity of our yearning to be different from what we are...”
“Es gibt allerlei Arten, einen Menschen zu morden oder wenigstens seine Seele, und das merkt keine Polizei der Welt. Dann genügt ein Wort, eine Offenheit im rechten Augenblick. Dann genügt ein Lächeln. Ich möchte den Menschen sehen, der nicht durch Lächeln umzubringen ist oder durch Schweigen.”
“Wenn ich so allein bin, siehst du, und mich an alles erinnere, das ist das Schlimmste, daß man allein nicht darüber lachen kann, oder dann ist es nur so ein böses und bitteres Lachen, so daß man später über genau die gleichen Dinge doch wieder heult.”
“Nothing is harder than to accept oneself.”
“Man kann alles erzählen, nur nicht sein wirkliches Leben; – diese Unmöglichkeit ist es, was uns verurteilt zu bleiben, wie unsere Gefährten uns sehen und spiegeln, sie, die vorgeben, mich zu kennen, sie, die sich als meine Freunde bezeichnen und nimmer gestatten, daß ich mich wandle [...].”
“Stiller jo je debelo gledal.
»Tako torej gledaš name!« je rekla Julika. »Si pač naredil podobo o meni, to pač vidim, dokončno podobo za vselej, in konec. Drugače kot takšne, saj to čutim, me zdaj kratko in malo več ne moreš videti. Kajne?« Stiller si je prižgal cigareto. »Jaz sem v zadnjem času tudi o mnogočem premišljevala,« je rekla Julika in pihala snežne kristale s svoje odeje tudi zdaj, ko je govorila sama, »- v zapovedih ne stoji kar tako: ne smeš si ustvariti podobo! Vsaka podoba je greh. Tole je ravno nasprotno kot ljubezen, vidiš, kar zdajle počneš s takim govorjenjem. Ne vem, če to razumeš. Če takega človeka ljubiš, mu vendar pustiš odprto možnost in si kljub vsem spominom kratko in malo pripravljen čuditi se, zmerom znova se čuditi, kako je drugačen, kako različen in ne takšenle, ne dokončna podoba, kakršno si delaš ti o svoji Juliki. Lahko ti rečem samo to: ni tako. Vselej se z govorjenjem v kaj zapičiš – ne smeš si delati podobe o meni! To je vse, kar ti na to lahko rečem.”
“Wolf Spring s not a city of finery. It is of fishers and farmers and folk on the docks, and no one wears their fine blacks except on Beltane.”
“People reflexively assume that competition is always a good thing, that it always brings out the best in people, but that’s only true of people who can forget the competition.”
“She had never realized before her life was torn apart how awkward grief was, how inconvenient for everyone with whom the mourner came into contact. At first it was acknowledged and respected and deferred to. But after a while it got in the way—of conversation, of laughter, of normal life.”
“All profound changes in consciousness, by their very nature, bring with them characteristic amnesias. Out of such oblivions, in specific historical circumstances, spring narratives… The photograph… is only the most peremptory of a huge modern accumulation of documentary evidence… which simultaneously records a certain apparent continuity and emphasizes its loss from memory. Out of this estrangement comes a conception of personhood, identity… which, because it cannot be “remembered”, must be narrated.”
“He would be atleast sixteen-old enough to have a driver's licence- and he would have crinkles around his eyes that showed he had a sense of humor and he would be tall, the kind of boy all the other girls would like to date”
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