“In London November isn't a month, it's a state of mind.”
― Antal Szerb, quote from Journey by Moonlight
“And while there is life there is always the chance that something might happen...”
― Antal Szerb, quote from Journey by Moonlight
“Everyone has to find his own way to die.”
― Antal Szerb, quote from Journey by Moonlight
“We carry within ourselves the direction our lives will take. Within ourselves burn the timeless, fateful stars.”
― Antal Szerb, quote from Journey by Moonlight
“You start off as Mr X, who happens to be an engineer, and sooner or later you're just an engineer who happens to be called Mr X.”
― Antal Szerb, quote from Journey by Moonlight
“For love, there has to be a distance across which lovers can approach one another. The approach is of course just an illusion, because love in fact separates people. Love is a polarity.”
― Antal Szerb, quote from Journey by Moonlight
“Because, my dear, in the spiritual life opposites meet. It's not the cold passionless ones who become great ascetics, but the most hot-blooded, people with something worth renouncing. That's why the church won't allow eunuchs to become priests.”
― Antal Szerb, quote from Journey by Moonlight
“I really dislike the sort of people who aren't like other people. It's true other people are so boring. But so are the ones who aren't like them.”
― Antal Szerb, quote from Journey by Moonlight
“The staying awake was a great self-sacrificaing gesture of friendship, and wonderfully in keeping with our current mood of intense friendship and religious fervour. We were all in a state of shock. We engaged in a long Dostojevskyan conversations and drank one black coffee after another. It was sort of night typical of youth, the sort you only can look back on with shame and embarassment once you've grown up. But God knows, I must have grown up already by then, because I don't feel the slightest embarassment when I think back to it, just a terrible nostalgia.”
― Antal Szerb, quote from Journey by Moonlight
“Love preserves one moment for ever, the moment of its birth. The beloved never ages.”
― Antal Szerb, quote from Journey by Moonlight
“I really detest those people who like to draw practical conclusions from scholarly truths, who 'apply learning to real life', like engineers who turn to propositions of chemistry into insecticides for bedbugs. It translates, in Goethe's words, as: 'life is grey, but the golden tree of theory is always green'.”
― Antal Szerb, quote from Journey by Moonlight
“The matter could in fact have been resolved quite simply if all those round the table had been equally intelligent. But in this life that is rarely given.”
― Antal Szerb, quote from Journey by Moonlight
“And he knew he would not be travelling home. If he had to wear a donkey jacket and wait for fifty years, then he would wait. At last there was a place in the world where he had reason to be, a place that had meaning. For days, without realising it, he had sensed this meaning everywhere, in the streets, houses, ruins and temples of Rome. It could not be said of the feeling that it was 'filled with pleasurable expectation'. Rome and its millennia were not by nature associated with happiness, and what Mihály anticipated from the future was not what is usually conjured up by 'pleasurable expectation'. He was awaiting his fate, the logical, appropriately Roman, ending.”
― Antal Szerb, quote from Journey by Moonlight
“The nature of civilisation everywhere was such that, even with the Greeks, it diverted people’s minds away from the reality of death.”
― Antal Szerb, quote from Journey by Moonlight
“as long as we keep moving, we don’t notice how tired we are, but only when we sit down.”
― Antal Szerb, quote from Journey by Moonlight
Antal Szerb
Born place: in Budapest, Hungary
Born date May 1, 1901
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“There was an awkwardness to him, a stoicism that most people, with their need for appearances and fake smiles, found off-putting. Shane couldn’t handle small talk or the excess bullshittery of modern society. When”
― Harlan Coben, quote from Fool Me Once
“Maybe instead of slamming the door on pain, I need to throw open the door wide and say, Come in. Sitd down with me. And don't leave until you have taught me what I need to know.”
― Glennon Doyle Melton, quote from Love Warrior
“Be careful. . . .” And then she let go. For even she knew there was only so much one could do to protect a winter moth drawn to an icy flame.”
― quote from The Crown's Game
“This takes a bit of getting used to,” he said. “All this smiling and good spirits. You’ve never been one of those lighthearted fellows.” “I’m not lighthearted, I’m . . . wholehearted.”
― Lisa Kleypas, quote from Marrying Winterborne
“The purpose of reading history is not to deride or vilify anybody. And it shouldn’t be. At best, the study of history should help us to honestly, dispassionately understand the rights and wrongs of people we regard as our ancestors and use those lessons to shape our present and future.”
― S.L. Bhyrappa, quote from Aavarana - The Veil
The Storyteller
The Lady In The Van
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BioShock: RaptureBookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
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