“If you should ask me where I've been all this time
I have to say "Things happen."
I have to dwell on stones darkening the earth,
on the river ruined in its own duration:
I know nothing save things the birds have lost,
the sea I left behind, or my sister crying.
Why this abundance of places? Why does day lock
with day? Why the dark night swilling round
in our mouths? And why the dead?”
― Pablo Neruda, quote from Residence on Earth
“Neither the heart cut by a sliver of glass in a wasteland of thorns, nor the atrocious waters seen in the corners of certain houses, waters like eyelids and eyes, could hold your waist in my hands when my heart lifts its oak trees toward your unbreakable thread of snow. Night sugar, spirit of crowns, redeemed human blood, your kisses banish me, and a surge of water with remnants of the sea strikes the silences that wait for you surrounding the worn-out chairs, wearing doors away.”
― Pablo Neruda, quote from Residence on Earth
“Do you not hear the constant victory,
in the human footrace
of time, slow as fire,
sure, and thick and Herculean
accumulating its volume and adding its sad fiber?”
― Pablo Neruda, quote from Residence on Earth
“Nights with bright pivots, departure, matter, uniquely voice, uniquely naked each day. Upon your breasts of still current, upon your legs ofharshness and water, upon the permanence and pride of your naked hair, I want to lie, my love, the tears now cast into the raucous basket where they gather, I want to lie, my love, alone with a syllable of destroyed silver, alone with a tip of your snowy breast. It is not now possible, at times, to win except by falling, it is not now possible, between two people, to tremble, to touch the river’s flower: man fibers come like needles, transactions, fragments, families of repulsive coral, tempests and hard passages through carpets of winter. Between lips and lips there are cities of great ash and moist crest, drops of when and how, indefinite traffic: between lips and lips, as if along a coast of sand and glass, the wind passes. That is why you are endless, gather me up as if you were all solemnity, all nocturnal like a zone, until you merge with the lines of time. Advance in sweetness, come to my side until the digital leaves of the violins have become silent, until the moss takes root in the thunder, until from the throbbing of hand and hand the roots come down.”
― Pablo Neruda, quote from Residence on Earth
“Nights with bright pivots, departure, matter, uniquely voice, uniquely naked each day. Upon your breasts of still current, upon your legs ofharshness and water, upon the permanence and pride of your naked hair, I want to lie, my love, the tears now cast into the raucous basket where they gather, I want to lie, my love, alone with a syllable of destroyed silver, alone with a tip of your snowy breast. It is not now possible, at times, to win except by falling, it is not now possible, between two people, to tremble, to touch the river’s flower: man fibers come like needles, transactions, fragments, families of repulsive coral, tempests and hard passages through carpets of winter. Between lips and lips there are cities of great ash and moist crest, drops of when and how, indefinite traffic: between lips and lips, as if along a coast of sand and glass, the wind passes. That is why you are endless, gather me up as if you were all solemnity, all nocturnal like a zone, until you merge with the lines of time. Advance in sweetness, come to my side until the digital leaves of the violins have become silent, until the moss takes root in the thunder, until from the throbbing of hand and hand the roots come down. VALS Yo toco el odio como pecho diurno, yo sin cesar, de ropa en ropa, vengo durmiendo lejos.”
― Pablo Neruda, quote from Residence on Earth
“The halls are full of kids, scrawny ones and fat ones, cool ones and uncool ones, freaks and jocks, cheerleaders and dogs, burnouts and nerds. It’s like Berlin, divided, except there are more walls in this city, and they’re better guarded.”
― Brian Malloy, quote from The Year of Ice
“...soft light ate away at the darkness and revealed a rather large room outfitted with a small kitchen, an antique-looking couch, and a… a bed. Nervously, I turned away and folded my arms. The place reminded me more of a love-nest than anything else. Then again, the stockpile of rifles hanging on the wall kind of ruined the cozy feel.”
― Jennifer L. Armentrout, quote from Cursed
“To leave the everpresent tension of Great Meadow was like shedding stiff, formal clothes or kicking off pinching shoes.”
― John McGahern, quote from Amongst Women
“How many people throughout history suffered from my disease and others like it but went untreated? This question is made more pressing by the knowledge that even though the disease was discovered in 2007, some doctors I spoke to believe that it’s been around at least as long as humanity has.”
― Susannah Cahalan, quote from Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness
“Kadınlar neden buna benzer bedenleri olmasını isterler bir türlü anlamıyorum. Ne kadar acayip görünüyor, onlar da kalkıp böyle bir bedene sahip olmak için deli gibi uğraşıyorlar, ne pahasına olursa olsun, diyetlere, ameliyatlara, iğnelere, açık saçık iç çamaşırlarıyla bu lanet olası şeylerden birini elde etmek için çabalıyorlar ve her şeyi deneyip de başarılı olamazlarsa sahtesini yapıyor o ahmak sürtükler. Pekala, burada bedava bir tane var. Gelin de alın pis orospular.
Neyin içine girdiklerini bilmiyorlar, belki bundan hoşlanıyorlar. Belki de bu bedenleri paranın çarkını döndürmek için kullanan kadınlar gibi hepsi birer pislik: Film yıldızları, mankenler, orospular.”
― Richard Brautigan, quote from The Abortion
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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