Quotes from The Devil Tree

“I'm sure there are aspects of my personality buried within me that will surface as soon as I know I am completely loved.”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from The Devil Tree

“When people claim to know who I am, I can no longer act freely.”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from The Devil Tree

“So this is insanity. How interesting. What happens next?”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from The Devil Tree

“I was pushing myself to extremes in order to discover my many selves.”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from The Devil Tree

“As a child I used to lie on the floor with my eyes tightly closed and hope that people would walk past without noticing me. That would mean I was truly invisible.”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from The Devil Tree

“There's a place beyond words where experience first occurs to which I always want to return.”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from The Devil Tree

“I have always suspected everyone who likes me of having poor judgment. I despise them for being so easily taken in.”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from The Devil Tree

“The recent Dictionary of Occupational Titles lists over twenty thousand specialized professions in America; being a millionaire is not one of them.”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from The Devil Tree

“Our language has lost its ability to convey the spontaneous.”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from The Devil Tree

“There is serenity and calm under the water's surface. You move easily and glimpse a world you have never seen before. You think of running out of oxygen and the idea of sharks dart out at you. You sense that there is something treacherous hiding behind every reef; no matter how much you explore you won't ever know what it is.”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from The Devil Tree

“Do you realize that one out of every four Americans is unbalanced? Think of your three closest friends. If they seem normal, then you are the one.”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from The Devil Tree

“People prefer to avoid confronting deformity and when they do it's only for kicks.”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from The Devil Tree

“When I saw them in Africa, I thought these birds were the greatest fliers of all. Hardly beating their wings, they fly for hours, swooping upwards on air currents with no sign of physical effort. But when they land, they pitch forward on their stubby legs without stopping. They skid along on their bellies, their necks straining to absorb the shock of the landing. Their beaks dig into the sand and they collide with anything in their path. Quite often they break their wings or beaks or spines and remain for the rest of their lives in the scrubby thickets not far from where they crash. The crippled birds sit there blind, paralyzed or in shock, and struggle slowly back and forth to their nests. Some hop on one leg, some drag their crippled wings behind them like broken umbrellas. I wonder whether they ever envy their brothers soaring in the air or if they're glad to be grounded and past their trial.”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from The Devil Tree

“Living is an arbitrary matter and I have every right to renounce it.”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from The Devil Tree

“My cynicism continuously undermines her faith in her own ability to master her moods.”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from The Devil Tree

“She protected herself by making herself believe no-one else could ever really understand her.”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from The Devil Tree

“Of all mammals, only a human being can say 'no.”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from The Devil Tree

“The native calls the baobab 'the devil tree' because he claims that the devil, getting tangled in its branches, punished by the tree by reversing it. To the native, the roots are branches now, and the branches are roots. To ensure that there would be no more baobabs, the devil destroyed all the young ones.”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from The Devil Tree

“As a boy I got the idea that death was an animal which lay curled inside waiting to swallow us.”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from The Devil Tree

“I deserve no punishment at all for being who I am.”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from The Devil Tree

“At first I was afraid that I would be left defenseless, that I would babble aloud the things I've always been terrified of saying. Instead, opium made me realize that I could say anything I liked without losing my identity.”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from The Devil Tree

“I remember how, as a boy, I used to collect the cork tips of my father's cigarettes and stick them in my stamp albums. I believed they contained his unspoken words, which one day would explain everything. I have not changed. Now I explore my memories, trying to discover the substructure hidden beneath my past actions, searching for the link to connect them all.”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from The Devil Tree

“Karen told me about an old woman who was the last surviving inhabitant of one of the Hermit Islands. She was the only one left who could speak her tribe's language, but the anthropologists didn't realize it and never bothered to learn it from her. When the old woman died, the language died with her.”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from The Devil Tree

“No big corporation would promote a hunchback.”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from The Devil Tree

“We know our lives are chaotic, but we insist that everything happen in an orderly way and be logically conceived.”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from The Devil Tree

“He had found the one calm place in the midst of the storm, a quiet voice calling him to earth.”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from The Devil Tree

“That's why she keeps her nails long, she says, to be able to scratch and claw.”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from The Devil Tree

“ruined chimneys rose above masses of broken bricks”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from The Devil Tree

About the author

Popular quotes

“Em didn't truly understand about my panic attacks - no one did. But she'd never pushed me to explain, never tried to ditch me when things got weird, and never once looked at me like I was a freak.”
― Rachel Vincent, quote from My Soul to Lose

“Geissler har vel ingen interesse for svaret og har kanske ikke hørt det, han vedblir: Kjøpe stenene tilbake altså. Siste gang lot jeg min søn sælge, det er en ung mand på din alder og ellers intet. Han er lynet i familjen, jeg er tåken. Jeg er av dem som vet det rette, men gjør det ikke. Men han er lynet, for tiden har han stillet sig i industriens tjeneste. Han var den som solgte for mig sist. Jeg er noget, det er ikke han, han er bare lynet, det snare nutidsmenneske. Men lynet som lyn er goldt. Ta dere Sellanråfolk: dere ser hver dag på nogen blå fjæld, det er ikke opfundne tingester, det er gamle fjæld, de står dypt nedsunkne i fortid; men dere har dem til kamerater. Dere går der sammen med himlen og jorden og er ett med dem, er ett med dette vide og rotfæstede. Dere behøver ikke sværd i hånden, dere går livet barhændt og barhodet midt i en stor venlighet. Se, der ligger naturen, den er din og dines! Mennesket og naturen bombarderer ikke hverandre, de gir hverandre ret, de konkurrerer ikke, kapløper ikke efter noget, de følges ad. Midt i dette går dere Sellanråfolk og er til. Fjældene, skogen, myrene, engene, himlen og stjærnerne – å det er ikke fattig og tilmålt, det er uten måte. Hør på mig, Sivert: Vær tilfreds! Dere har alt å leve av, alt å leve for, alt å tro på, dere fødes og frembringer, dere er de nødvendige på jorden. Det er ikke alle som er det, men dere er det: nødvendige på jorden. Dere opholder livet. Fra slægt til slægt er det til i lutter avl, og når dere dør tar den nye avl fat. Det er dette som menes med det evige liv. Hvad har dere igjen for det? En tilværelse i ret og magt, en tilværelse i troskyldig og rigtig stilling til alt. Hvad dere har igjen for det? Intet horser og regjerer dere Sellanråfolk, dere har ro og autoritet, dere er omsluttet av den store venlighet. Det har dere igjen for det. Dere ligger ved en barm og leker med en varm morshånd og patter. Jeg tænker på din far, han er en av de 32 tusen. Hvad er mangen anden? Jeg er noget, jeg er tåken, jeg er her og der, jeg svømmer, stundom er jeg regn på et tørt sted. Men de andre? Min søn er lynet som intet er, han er det golde blink, han kan handle. Min søn han er vor tids type, han tror oprigtig på det tiden har lært ham, på det jøden og yankee'en har lært ham; jeg ryster på hodet til det. Men jeg er ikke noget mystisk, det er bare i min familje jeg er tåken. Der sitter jeg og ryster på hodet. Saken er: jeg mangler ævnen til den angerløse adfærd. Hadde jeg den ævne så kunde jeg være lyn selv. Nu er jeg tåken.”
― Knut Hamsun, quote from Growth of the Soil

“Sometimes I think that truth is a place. In my mind, it is like a city: there can be a hundred roads, a thousand paths, that will all take you, eventually, to the same place. It does not matter where you come from. If you walk toward the truth, you will reach it, whatever path you take.” Calum”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances

“The tritone - an augmented fourth (or, in hazz parlance, a flatted fifth) - is a difficult interval to sing and has often been regarded as having an ugly, uncanny, or even diabolical quality. Its use was forbidden in early ecclesiastical music, and early theorists called it diabolus in musica ("the devil in music"). But Tartini used it, for this very reason, in his Devil's Trill Sonata for violin.
Though the raw tritone sounds so harsh, it is easily filled out with another tritone to form a diminished seventh. And this, the Oxford Companion to Music notes, "has a luscious effect... The chord is indeed the most Protean in all harmony. In England the nickname has been given it of 'The Clapham Junction of Harmony' - from a railway station in London where so many lines join that once arrived there one can take a train for almost anywhere else.”
― Oliver Sacks, quote from Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain

“It seems to me that our lives are consumed by countless wasting years, but only a few shining moments. I missed mine. Yes is what I should have said. Of course I should have said yes.”
― Mordecai Richler, quote from Solomon Gursky Was Here

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About BookQuoters

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.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.