Etgar Keret · 130 pages
Rating: (4.9K votes)
“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
Etgar Keret
Born place: in Ramat Gan, Israel
Born date August 20, 1967
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“He could pick my heart like a rose and watch it wither in his hand. Sometimes I think he is like that. At other times I think he is as simple and golden and generous as our father's fields. And then I see things in his eyes - things that I have never looked at, and I know that I have walked a short and easy road out of my past, while he has walked a thousand roads to meet me. I know Perrin's past; the same road runs into his future. I don't know Corbet.”
― Patricia A. McKillip, quote from Winter Rose
“By the latter part of 1861 the War Department had taken over from the states the responsibility for feeding, clothing, and arming Union soldiers. But this process was marred by inefficiency, profiteering, and corruption. To fill contracts for hundreds of thousands of uniforms, textile manufacturers compressed the fibers of recycled woolen goods into a material called “shoddy.” This noun soon became an adjective to describe uniforms that ripped after a few weeks of wear, shoes that fell apart, blankets that disintegrated, and poor workmanship in general on items necessary to equip an army of half a million men and to create its support services within a few short months.”
― James M. McPherson, quote from Battle Cry of Freedom
“Soon, the nonstop buzzing of the local insect life gives way to something equally annoying. Country music.”
― Pittacus Lore, quote from The Revenge of Seven
“Sometimes, she told herself, life was a series of obstacles that just had to be negotiated, possibly through sheer act of will. She stared out at the muddy blue of the endless sea, gulped in the air, lifted her chin, and decided that she could survive this. She could survive most things. It was nobody’s right to be happy, after all.”
― Jojo Moyes, quote from One Plus One
“We are not the enemy,” he says. “That’s what the enemy always says.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from UnDivided
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