“One is never alone with a book nearby, don't you agree? Every page reminds us of a day that has passed and makes us relive the emotions that filled it. Happy hours underlined in red pencil, dark ones in black...”
“Everyone gets the devil he deserves.”
“Because God and the devil could be one and the same thing, and everybody understood it in his own way.”
“As for me, all I know is that I know nothing. And when I want to know something, I look it up in books--their memory never fails”
“Of all the universal lies she accepted unquestioningly, the happy ending was the most absurd. The hero and heroine lived happily ever after, and the ending seemed indisputable, definitive. No questions asked about how long love or happiness lasts in that 'forever' that can be divided into lifetimes, years, months. Even days”
“You’ve just mentioned the price that has to be paid…Pride, freedom…Knowledge. Whether at the beginning or at the end, you have to pay for everything. Even courage, don’t you think? And don’t you think a lot of courage is needed to fight God?”
“Films are for everyone, collective, generous, with children cheering when the cavalry arrives. And they're even better on TV: two can watch and comment. But your books are selfish. Solitary. Some of them can't even be read, they fall to bits if you open them. A person who's interested only in books doesn't need other people, and that frightens me”
“Whenever I got any money, I invested it in books. When my savings dwindled, I got rid of everything else—pictures, furniture, china. I think you understand what it is to be a passionate collector of books…”
“The world is full of banks and rivers running between them, of men and women crossing bridges and fords, unaware of the consequences, not looking back or beneath their feet, and with no loose change for the boatman.”
“Becoming a book collector is like joining a religion: it’s for life.”
“Who are you?"
"The devil," she said. "The devil in love.”
“You can make a text mean anything, especially if it’s old and full of ambiguities.”
“I'm afraid of wooden horses, cheap gin, and pretty girls. Especially when they give me presents. And when they go by the name of the woman who defeated Sherlock Holmes.”
“And which devil do you prefer? Dante's?"
"No. Much too terrifying. Too medieval for my taste."
"Mephistopheles?"
"Not him, either. He's too pleased with himself. Too much a trickster, like a crooked lawyer ... Anyway, I never trust people who smile a lot."
"What about the one in The Karamazovs?"
"Petty. A civil servant with dirty nails. I suppose the devil I prefer is Milton's fallen angel.”
“When he stepped into the shower, the hot water scalded him. He let it run over his face, burning his eyelids. He put up with the pain, his jaw clenched and his muscles taut, suppressing the urge to howl with loneliness in the suffocating steam. For four years, one month, and twelve days, Nikon always got into the shower with him after they made love and soaped his back slowly, interminably. And often she put her arms around him, like a little girl in the rain. One day I'll leave without ever really knowing you. You'll remember my big, dark eyes. The reproachful silences. The moans of anxiety as I slept. The nightmares you couldn't save me from. You'll remember all this when I'm gone.”
“Amicizia..." Corso si guardò attorno, aspettando che qualcuno gli spiegasse la parola. "I bar e i cimiteri sono pieni di amici inseparabili.”
“A century from now,” he murmured as he lifted a page and examined it against the light, closing one eye, “almost all the contents of today’s libraries will have disappeared. But these books, printed two hundred or even five hundred years ago, will remain intact. We have the books, and the world, that we deserve. . . . Isn’t that so, Pablo?” “Lousy books printed on lousy paper.”
“Quien sólo se interesa por los libros no necesita a nadie, y eso me da miedo.”
“As for me, all I know is that I know nothing. And when I want to know something, I look it up in books—their memory never fails.”
“Audience turn to archetype packed stories to enjoy, whether consciously or unconsciously, the device of repeated plots with small variations. Dispositio rather than elocution. That's why the serial, even the most trite television serial, can become a cult both for a naïve audience and for a more sophisticated one.”
“Начинът, по който някои хора пипат книги, е направо престъпен.”
“Ông đã đọc câu chuyện hài hước của Nodier về người sưu tầm sách chưa? Chuyện xảy ra với tôi đúng như thế. Tôi sẵn lòng bắn chết bất kỳ một tay thợ đóng sách nào nếu hắn dùng máy xén giấy quá vụng. Tôi cực kỳ hạnh phúc nếu phát hiện một bản in để lề rộng hơn hai milimet so với thứ được mô tả trong các thư mục chuẩn.”
“found out later that he lived alone, surrounded by books, both his own and other people’s, and that as well as being a hired hunter of books he was an expert on Napoleon’s battles. He could set out on a board, from memory, the exact positions of troops on the eve of Waterloo. A”
“One day he reads his friend's novel and discovers that Ishmael's account and his own memories of what happened are completely different. So he writes his own version of the story. Call me Queequeg the story begins, and he titles it A Whale. From the harpooner's point of view, Ishmael was a pedantic scholar who blew things out of proportion. Moby Dick wasn't to blame, he was a whale like any other. It was all a matter of an incompetent captain wanting to settle a personal score instead of filling barrels with oil. "What does it matter who tore his leg off?" writes Queequeg.”
“Non mi piacciono i regali” mormorò Corso, cupo. “Una volta dei tipi accettarono un certo cavallo di legno. Artigianato acheo, c'era scritto sull'etichetta. Che idioti.”
“- Само след един век почти цялото съдържание на днешните библиотеки ще е отишло на боклука. Но тези книги, отпечатани преди двеста, дри петстотин години, ще останат непокътнати. Така е, и книгите, и светът, в който живеем, са такива, каквито заслужаваме… Не е ли така, Пабло?
- Калпави книги, отпечатани на калпава хартия.”
“En cuanto a mí, sólo sé que no sé nada. Y cuando quiero saber busco en los libros, a los que nunca falla la memoria.”
“Me llamo Boris Balkan y una vez traduje La Cartuja de Parma. Por lo demás, las críticas y recensiones que escribo salen en suplementos y revistas de media Europa, organizo cursos sobre escritores contemporáneos en las universidades de verano, y tengo algunos libros editados sobre novela popular del XIX. Nada espectacular, me temo; sobre todo en estos tiempos donde los suicidios se disfrazan de homicidios, las novelas son escritas por el médico de Rogelio Ackroyd, y demasiada gente se empeña en publicar doscientas páginas sobre las apasionantes vivencias que experimenta mirándose al espejo.”
“Excellent papier. Rien à voir avec les pâtes mécaniques d'aujourd'hui... Vous savez quelle est la durée de vie moyenne d'un livre imprimé à l'heure actuelle ?... Dis lui, Pablo.
- Soixante-dix ans, répondit l'autre avec rancœur, comme si Corso était le coupable. Soixante-dix misérables années.
Le frère aîné cherchait quelque chose parmi les objets dispersés sur la table. Finalement, il s'empara d'une loupe spéciale à fort grossissement et l'approcha du livre.
- Dans moins d'un siècle, murmura-t-il tandis qu'il soulevait une page pour l'étudier à contre-jour en fermant un œil, presque tout ce qui se trouve aujourd'hui dans les librairies aura disparu. Mais ces volumes imprimés il y a deux cents ou cinq cents ans, demeureront intacts... Nous avons les livres, comme le monde, que nous méritons... N'est-ce pas, Pablo ?
- Des livres de merde pour un monde de merde.”
“One is never alone with a book nearby, don't you agree?...Every page reminds us of a day that has passed and makes us relive the emotions that filled it. Happy hours underlined in red pencil, dark ones in black...Where was I, then? What prince called me his friend, what beggar called me his brother?”
“You know, maybe we don't need enemies."
"Yeah, best friends aree about all I can take.”
“It was the kind of barbarously sticky American afternoon that made me yearn for the shadows cast by scooting summer clouds in northern Europe....”
“If you are lucky you will find something you love, if youre really lucky youll find someone to pay you for it”
“La desgracia de Adam Appleby era que, en cuanto despertaba del sueño, su conciencia se inundaba inmediatamente de todo aquello en lo que menos deseaba pensar. Tenía la impresión de que otros hombres se enfrentaban a cada nuevo amanecer con la mente y el corazón renovados, llenos de optimismo y decisión; o bien de que se arrastraban ganduleando durante la primera hora del día en un estado de bendito sopor, incapaces de pensar en nada, ni agradable ni desagradable. Pero, agazapados como arpías en torno a su cama, los pensamientos desagradables esperaban para asaltarle tan pronto como Adam parpadease y abriera los ojos. En aquel momento se veía obligado, como alguien que se ahoga, a examinar su vida entera, dividido entre lamentaciones por el pasado y miedos futuros.”
“Man is out of nature and hopelessly in it; he is dual, up in the stars and yet housed in a heart-pumping, breath-gasping body that once belonged to a fish and still carries the gill-marks to prove it. His body is a material fleshy casing that is alien to him in many ways—the strangest and most repugnant way being that it aches and bleeds and will decay and die. Man is literally split in two: he has an awareness of his own splendid uniqueness in that he sticks out of nature with atowering majesty, and yet he goes back into the ground a few feet in order blindly and dumbly to rot and disappear forever.”
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