“I read somewhere; while God still existed one sustained a dialogue with God, and now that He no longer exists one has to sustain a dialogue with other people, I guess, or, better still, with oneself, that is to say, one talks or mumbles to oneself.”
― Imre Kertész, quote from Kaddish for an Unborn Child
“I have felt that some sort of awful shame is attached to my name and that I have somehow brought this shame along from somewhere I have never been, and that I have carried this sin as my sin even though I have never committed it; this sin pursues me all my life, which life is undoubtedly not my own even thought I live it , I suffer from it die of it.”
― Imre Kertész, quote from Kaddish for an Unborn Child
“No" — I could never be another person’s father, fate, god,
"No" — it should never happen to another child, what happened to me; my childhood. (Auschwitz).”
― Imre Kertész, quote from Kaddish for an Unborn Child
“...една жена с плаха усмивка и плавни движения, с архаичната маска на босонога слугиня с разпуснати коси тихо и свенливо моли да я пусна в моето ultimum moriens, т. е. в сърцето си, там се оглежда с мила и любопитна усмивка, докосва всичко с нежна ръка, тук-таме забърсва праха, проветрява застоялите кътчета, изхвърля едно-друго и на мястото нарежда собствените си вещи, настанява се изящно, акуратно и неотразимо, докато накрая осъзнавам, че съм напълно изтикан оттам и потиснат, като чужденец в изгнание, обикалям собственото си сърце, което ми се мержелее в далечината със затворени врати, както нечий топъл дом за бездомника; и доста често успявам да се нанеса обратно само ако се върна с друга жена под ръка и я настаня там.”
― Imre Kertész, quote from Kaddish for an Unborn Child
“On one occasion she had spoken heatedly about the French Revolution, saying it had been little better than the Nazis. Her great-aunt responded by saying that she, being a Jew, had no right to talk about the French Revolution in that way, because had there been no French Revolution the Jews would still be living in ghettos today. After this rebuke from the great-aunt, so my wife remembered, she had not spoken a word at home for days or maybe even weeks. She had felt that she herself no longer existed, that she had no right at all to lay claim to her own feelings or thoughts, that solely because she had been born a Jew she could have only Jewish feelings and Jewish thoughts.”
― Imre Kertész, quote from Kaddish for an Unborn Child
“... đời sống hạnh phúc là một đời sống câm lặng...”
― Imre Kertész, quote from Kaddish for an Unborn Child
“If you consider this subject unnecessary for Christians, then please quit the field; you and I have nothing in common, for I consider it vital.”
― Martin Luther, quote from The Bondage of the Will
“Mosques are plenty, churches are plenty, graveyards are plenty, but morals and whiskey are scarce. The Koran does not permit Mohammedans to drink. Their natural instincts do not permit them to be moral. They say the Sultan has eight hundred wives. This almost amounts to bigamy. It makes our cheeks burn with shame to see such a thing permitted here in Turkey. We do not mind it so much in Salt Lake, however.”
― Mark Twain, quote from The Innocents Abroad
“Felix had gone to live in a lotus land of his imagination. Where what is desired is dreamed of as already happened, where obstacles dissolve under the weight of desire, and where reality has vanished entirely.”
― Iain Pears, quote from The Dream of Scipio
“Abby_Donovan: C’mon…who are you really? Are you hiding a secret identity? Are you Batman? Ashton Kutcher?”
― Teresa Medeiros, quote from Goodnight Tweetheart
“Because what is civilized life but an imposition of unreal standards upon flawed and defective human beings by other human beings no less flawed and defective?”
― Winston Graham, quote from The Angry Tide
BookQuoters 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.
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