Quotes from Sunset Park

“Wounds are an essential part of life, and until you are wounded in some way, you cannot become a man.”
― Paul Auster, quote from Sunset Park

“[T]he only luxury he allows himself is buying books, paperback books, mostly novels, American novels, British novels, foreign novels in translation, but in the end books are not luxuries so much as necessities, and reading is an addiction he has no wish to be cured of.”
― Paul Auster, quote from Sunset Park

“...and when she thinks of that generation of silent men, the boys who lived through the Depression and grew up to become soldiers or not-soldiers in the war, she doesn’t blame them for refusing to talk, for not wanting to go back into the past, but how curious it is, she thinks, how sublimely incoherent that her generation, which doesn’t have much of anything to talk about yet, has produced men who never stop talking, men like Bing, for example, or men like Jake, who talks about himself at the slightest prompting, who has an opinion on every subject, who spews forth words from morning to night, but just because he talks, that doesn’t mean she wants to listen to him, whereas with the silent men, the old men, the ones who are nearly gone now, she would give anything to hear what they have to say.”
― Paul Auster, quote from Sunset Park

“Yes, she is in love with him, and yes, in spite of his qualms and inner hesitations, he loves her back, however improbable that might seem to him. Note here for the record that he is not someone with a special fixation on young girls. Until now, all the women in his life have been more or less his own age. Pilar therefore does not represent an embodiment of some ideal female type for him--she is merely herself, a small piece of luck he stumbled across one afternoon in a public park, an exception to every rule.”
― Paul Auster, quote from Sunset Park

“No, she can weather his disappointments if she has to, that isn't the problem, she can put up with anything as long as she feels he is solidly with her, but that is precisely what she doesn't feel anymore, and even if he seems content to glide along with her out of old habits, the reflex of old affections, she is becoming ever more certain, no, certain is probably too strong a word for it, she is becoming ever more willing to entertain the idea that he has stopped loving her.”
― Paul Auster, quote from Sunset Park

“He is twenty-eight years old, and to the best of his knowledge he has no ambitions. No burning ambitions, in any case, no clear idea of what building a plausible future might entail for him.”
― Paul Auster, quote from Sunset Park

“غير أن الكتب في نهاية المطاف, لا تُعد ترفاً, بقدر ما هي ضرورة, القراءة إدمان !”
― Paul Auster, quote from Sunset Park

“Doch am Ende sind Bücher kein Luxus, sondern eine Notwendigkeit, und Lesen ist eine Sucht, von der er keinesfalls geheilt werden möchte.”
― Paul Auster, quote from Sunset Park

“una vida rota por el exceso y la escasez de este mundo”
― Paul Auster, quote from Sunset Park

“The grinding search for money can crush the spirit out of you unless you're made of steel.”
― Paul Auster, quote from Sunset Park

“The human body lives in the mind of one who possesses a human body, and to live inside the human body possessed of the mind that perceives another human body is to live in a world of others.”
― Paul Auster, quote from Sunset Park

“Cada hombre es distinto de todos los demás, y cuando ocurren cosas horribles, cada cual reacciona a su manera.”
― Paul Auster, quote from Sunset Park

“Non ricorda più l'ultima volta che è riuscita a dormire per sei ore piene, sei ore ininterrotte senza svegliarsi da un brutto sogno o scoprire che i suoi occhi si erano aperti all'alba, e sa che questi problemi di sonno sono un brutto segno, un avviso inequivocabile del fatto che l'aspettano guai, ma malgrado quello che continua a ripeterle sua madre, non vuole tornare ai farmaci. Prendere una di quelle pillole è come inghiottire una piccola dose di morte. Quando inizi con quella roba, i tuoi giorni vengono trasformati in un regime stordente di smemoratezza e confusione, e non c'è momento in cui senti la testa imbottita di batuffoli di cotone e brandelli di carta. Ellen non vuole chiudere la sua vita per sopravvivere alla sua vita. Vuole che i suoi sensi siano svegli, formulare pensieri che non svaniscano nel mentre le si presentano, sentirsi viva in tutti i modi in cui un tempo si sentiva viva. Ora non sono in programma collassi. Non può permettersi altri cedimenti, ma malgrado gli sforzi di tenersi salda nel qui e ora, la pressione si è nuovamente accumulata in lei, ricomincia a sentire fitte del vecchio panico, il nodo nella gola, il sangue che le scorre troppo in fretta nelle vene, il cuore contratto e il polso frenetico. Paura senza oggetto, come gliel'ha descritta una volta il dottor Burnham. No, dice ora fra sé: paura di morire senza aver vissuto.”
― Paul Auster, quote from Sunset Park

“It was the best thing that could have happened to him, it was the worst thing that could have happened to him.”
― Paul Auster, quote from Sunset Park

“That is the idea he is toying with, Renzo says, to write an essay about the things that don’t happen, the lives not lived, the wars not fought, the shadow worlds that run parallel to the world we take to be the real world, the not-said and the not-done, the not-remembered.”
― Paul Auster, quote from Sunset Park

“When he talks about the world, then, he is referring to his world, to the small, circumscribed sphere of his own life, and not to the world-at-large, which is too large and too broken for him to have any effect on it.”
― Paul Auster, quote from Sunset Park

“The walking wounded, opening their veins and bleeding in public.”
― Paul Auster, quote from Sunset Park

“I was the best thing that could have happened to him, it was the worst thing that could have happened to him.”
― Paul Auster, quote from Sunset Park

“وكل مرّة يعمل على شيء جديد خرب من صناعة الأنتيكا قبل نصف قرن من الزمن، فإنه يفعل ذلك بإرادة وشغف جنرال يخوض الحرب.”
― Paul Auster, quote from Sunset Park

“تعلّم أن يكون على أهبّة الاستعداد معها، أن يُعدّ نفسه لتلك النوبات التي لا يمكن توقّعها.”
― Paul Auster, quote from Sunset Park

“El júbilo de ver de nuevo su rostro,
de volver a abrazarla, de escuchar su
risa, de verla comer, de mirar sus manos
otra vez, la dicha de contemplar su
cuerpo desnudo, de besar su cuerpo
desnudo, de ver cómo frunce el ceño,
cómo se cepilla el pelo, se pinta las
uñas, la alegría de estar otra vez con
ella en la ducha, de hablar de libros con
ella otra vez, de ver cómo se le llenan
los ojos de lágrimas, de ver cómo
camina, de oír cómo insulta a Ángela, el
regocijo de leerle en voz alta, de oírla
eructar, de ver cómo se cepilla los
dientes, el gozo de desnudarla de nuevo,
de juntar otra vez la boca con la suya, de
mirarle la nuca, el placer de andar por
la calle con ella, de ponerle el brazo
sobre los hombros, de lamerle los
pechos de nuevo, de penetrar en su
cuerpo, de volver a despertarse a su
lado, de hablar de matemáticas con ella,
de comprarle ropa, de darle y recibir
masajes en la espalda, de volver a
hablar de su porvenir, la alegría de vivir
otra vez con ella en el presente, de oírla
decir que lo quiere, de decirle que la
quiere, de volver a sentir la mirada de
sus intensos ojos negros, y luego la
tortura de verla abordar el autobús en la
terminal de Port Authority en la tarde
del 3 de enero con la plena conciencia
de que hasta abril, dentro de más de tres
meses, no tendrá ocasión de volver a
estar con ella.”
― Paul Auster, quote from Sunset Park

“...in the end books are not luxuries so much as necessities, and reading is an addiction he has no wish to be cured of.”
― Paul Auster, quote from Sunset Park

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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.

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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