Quotes from The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God & Other Stories

“There are two kinds of people, those who like to sleep next to the wall, and those who like to sleep next to the people who push them off the bed.”
― Etgar Keret, quote from The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God & Other Stories

“I think she cried at my funeral. It's not that I'm conceited or anything, but I'm pretty sure. Sometimes I can actually picture her talking about me to some guy she feels close to. Talking about me dying. About how they lowered me into the grave, kind of shrivelled up and pitiful, like an old chocolate bar. About how we never really got a chance. And afterwards the guy fucks her, a fuck that's all about making her feel better.”
― Etgar Keret, quote from The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God & Other Stories

“You'll never know what's happening inside the heads of other people.”
― Etgar Keret, quote from The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God & Other Stories

“I have always thought that Heaven is a place for people who had had a good life, but that is not true. God is merciful and way too good to make it so. The Heaven is just a place for people who could not be really happy while living on Earth. I was once told that people who commit suicide are taken back on Earth to repeat life from the very beginning because if they did not like it once, it did not mean they would not like it the next time. But those who did not fit in on Earth at all, ended up here. Everyone comes to Heaven in their own way.”
― Etgar Keret, quote from The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God & Other Stories

“Доплака му се, но в очите му нямаше сълзи. Какъв е смисълът, да си идеално вакуумиран, ако си целият мокър отвътре?”
― Etgar Keret, quote from The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God & Other Stories

“Cennetin hayatlarını iyilik yapmaya adamışların yeri olduğunu sanırdım, ama öyle değilmiş. Tanrı böyle bir karar vermeyecek kadar merhametli ve müşfik. Cennet dünyada gerçekten mutlu olamayanların yeri”
― Etgar Keret, quote from The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God & Other Stories

“Ehud was tall and strong and was always quiet. Lots of people thought that Ehud was quiet because he was stupid. That wasn’t true. He may not have been the smartest kid on the block, but he was no moron either.”
― Etgar Keret, quote from The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God & Other Stories

“Diğer serserilerden pek farkı yoktu Kobi'nin. İnsanın aslında çirkin mi yoksa aptal mı olduğuna karar veremediği tiplerden”
― Etgar Keret, quote from The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God & Other Stories

“İki tür insan vardır, duvar yanında uyuyanlar ve onları yataktan aşağı iten birinin yanında uyuyanlar.”
― Etgar Keret, quote from The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God & Other Stories

“Quanta.

On Yom Kippur Eve, the quanta went to ask Einstein for his forgiveness. “I'm not home,” Einstein yelled at them from behind his locked door. On their way back, people swore loudly at them through the windows, and someone even threw a can. The quanta pretended not to care, but deep in their hearts they were really hurt. Nobody understands the quanta, everybody hates them.
“You parasites,” people would shout at them as they walked down the road.
“Go serve in the army.”
“We wanted to, actually,” the quanta would try to explain, “but the army wouldn't take us because we're so tiny.” Not that anyone listened. Nobody listens to the quanta when they try to defend themselves, but when they say something that can be interpreted negatively, well, then everyone's all ears. The quanta can make the most innocent statement, like “Look, there's a cat!” and right away they're saying on the news how the quanta were stirring up trouble and they rush off to interview Schrödinger. All in all, the media hated the quanta worse than anybody, because once the quanta had spoken at an IBM press conference about how the very act of viewing had an effect on an event, and all the journalists thought the quanta were lobbying to keep them from covering the Intifada. The quanta could insist as much as they wanted that this wasn't at all what they meant and that they had no political agenda whatsoever, but nobody would believe them anyway. Everyone knew they were friends of the government's Chief Scientist.
Loads of people think the quanta are indifferent, that they have no feelings, but it simply isn't true. On Friday, after the program about the bombing of Hiroshima, they were interviewed in the studio in Jerusalem. They could barely talk. They just sat there facing the open mike and sniffling, and all the viewers at home, who didn't know the quanta very well, thought they were avoiding the question and didn't realize the quanta were crying What's sad is that even if the quanta were to write dozens of letters to the editors of all the scientific journals in the world and prove beyond a doubt that people had taken advantage of their naiveté, and that they'd never ever imagined it would end that way, it wouldn't do them any good, because nobody understands the quanta. The physicists least of all.”
― Etgar Keret, quote from The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God & Other Stories

“So if you're really unhappy down there, and if all kinds of people are telling you that you're suffering from severe perceptual disorders, look for your own way of getting here, and when you find it, could you please bring some cards, 'cause we're getting pretty tired of the marbles. - from "Pipes”
― Etgar Keret, quote from The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God & Other Stories

“Има пилоти, които са стигнали при нас след лупинг в точно определено място от Бермудския триъгълник. Има домакини, които са се промушили през гърба на кухненския си долап, и математици, които са открили някоя деформация в топологичното пространство и им се е наложило да се проврат през нея. Така че - ако сте много нещастни там долу и ако всякакви хора ви обясняват, че страдате от остро перцептивно разстройство - потърсете личния си начин да се доберете дотук и когато го намерите, моля, донесете колода карти, че тези топчета ни дойдоха до гуша.”
― Etgar Keret, quote from The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God & Other Stories

“Винаги съм вярвал, че Раят е място за хора, които цял живот са правили добро, само че не е така. Бог е прекалено милостив и щедър, за да вземе подобно решение. Раят просто е място за хора, които на земята са били истински неспособни на щастие. Тук ми казаха, че самоубийците получават възможност да изживеят живота си отново, защото не е речено, че ако не им е допаднал първия път, втория няма да им пасне. Но онези, които изобщо не си намират място на света, се озовават тук. И всеки от тях влиза в Рая по свой си начин.”
― Etgar Keret, quote from The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God & Other Stories

“And suddenly the driver remembered how he'd once promised himself that if he became God in the end, he'd be merciful and kind, and would listen to all His creatures. So when he saw Eddie from way up in his driver's seat, he simply couldn't go through with it, and in spite of all his ideology and his simple arithmetic, he opened the door, and Eddie got on”
― Etgar Keret, quote from The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God & Other Stories

“And when they started moving, he looked in the rear-view mirror and gave Eddie a sad wink, which somehow made the whole thing almost bearable.”
― Etgar Keret, quote from The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God & Other Stories

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“Then I noticed it. Red and oval-shaped with a white oval in the center, like the giant eye of a jinni. It sizzled and hissed, the white part expanding, moving closer. It horrified me to my very core. Must get out of here! I thought. Now! It sees me! But I didn’t know how to move. Move with what? I had no body. The red was bitter venom. The white was like the sun’s worst heat. I started screaming and crying again. Then I was opening my eyes to a cup of water. Everyone’s face broke into a smile. “Oh, praise Ani,” the Ada said. I felt the pain and jumped, about to get up and run. I had to run. From that eye. I was so mixed up that for a moment, I was sure that what I’d just seen was causing the pain. “Don’t”
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“Could be off one of your own boats, Lavette," Whittier said. "The crab I mean." Whittier was hostile, contriving his hostility in witless remarks. Dan said nothing, only thinking that if this small, pompous, foolish man, so uninformed about the essence of his own business, was a measure of the hundred tycoons who ruled the hills of San Francisco, then his own way up would be none too difficult. It came down to money; if you had money, you functioned and you could do without guts or brains; and if you had money, you saw a girl like Jean Sheldon more than once, more than by accident.”
― Howard Fast, quote from The Immigrants

“Creo que la verdad está bien en las matemáticas, en la química, en la filosofía. No en la vida.
En la vida es más importante la ilusión, la imaginación, el deseo, la esperanza. Además, ¿sabemos acaso lo que es la verdad? Si yo lo digo que aquel trozo de ventana azul, digo una verdad. Pero es una verdad parcial, y por lo tanto una especie de mentira. Porque el trozo de ventana no está solo, está en una casa, en una cuidad, en un paisaje. Está rodeado del gris de ese muro de cemento, del azul claro del cielo, de aquellas nubes alargadas, de infinitas cosas más. Y si no digo todo absolutamente todo, estoy mintiendo. Pero decir todo es imposible, aun en este caso de la ventana, de un siempre trozo de la realidad física. La realidad es infinita y además infinitamente matizada, y si me olvido de un solo matiz, ya estoy mintiendo. Ahora imagínese lo que es la realidad de los seres humano con sus complicaciones y recovecos, contradicciones y además cambiantes. Porque cambia a cada instante que pasa, y lo que éramos hace un momento no lo somos más. ¿Somos, acaso, siempre la misma persona? ¿Tenemos acaso siempre los mismos sentimientos? Se puede querer a alguien y de pronto desestimarlo y hasta detestarlo. Y si cuando lo desestimamos cometemos el error de decírselo, eso es una verdad, pero una verdad momentánea, que no será más verdad dentro de una hora o al otro día, o en otras circunstancias. Y en cambio el ser a quien se la decimos creerá que ésa es la verdad, la verdad para siempre y desde siempre. Y se hundirá en la desesperación.”
― Ernesto Sabato, quote from On Heroes and Tombs

“Depression is the evangelist for emptiness.”
― Hannah Hart, quote from Buffering: Unshared Tales of a Life Fully Loaded

“And Lot's wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human. So she was turned into a pillar of salt. So it goes.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, quote from Slaughterhouse-five: The Children's Crusade, A Duty-dance with Death

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