Quotes from The Hour of the Star

Clarice Lispector ·  96 pages

Rating: (10.2K votes)


“Who has not asked himself at some time or other: am I a monster or is this what it means to be a person?”
― Clarice Lispector, quote from The Hour of the Star


“Everything in the world began with a yes. One molecule said yes to another molecule and life was born.”
― Clarice Lispector, quote from The Hour of the Star


“So long as I have questions to which there are no answers, I shall go on writing.”
― Clarice Lispector, quote from The Hour of the Star


“I only achieve simplicity with enormous effort”
― Clarice Lispector, quote from The Hour of the Star


“Things were somehow so good that they were in danger of becoming very bad because what is fully mature is very close to rotting”
― Clarice Lispector, quote from The Hour of the Star



“She believed in angels, and, because she believed, they existed”
― Clarice Lispector, quote from The Hour of the Star


“Ela acreditava em anjo e, porque acreditava, eles existiam" | "She believed in angels, and, because she believed, they existed”
― Clarice Lispector, quote from The Hour of the Star


“No it is not easy to write. It is as hard as breaking rocks. Sparks and splinters fly like shattered steel.”
― Clarice Lispector, quote from The Hour of the Star


“I ask myself: is every story that has ever been written in this world, a story of suffering and affliction?


― Clarice Lispector, quote from The Hour of the Star


“But don't forget, in the meantime, that this is the season for strawberries. Yes.”
― Clarice Lispector, quote from The Hour of the Star



“All the world began with a yes. One molecule said yes to another molecule and life was born. But before prehistory there was the prehistory of the prehistory and there was the never and there was the yes. It was ever so. I don’t know why, but I do know that the universe never began.
Make no mistake, I only achieve simplicity with enormous effort.”
― Clarice Lispector, quote from The Hour of the Star


“For one has the right to shout.
So, I am shouting.”
― Clarice Lispector, quote from The Hour of the Star


“Who hasn't asked himself, am I a monster or is this what it means to be human?”
― Clarice Lispector, quote from The Hour of the Star


“To eat communion bread will be to taste the world's indifference, and to immerse myself in nothingness.”
― Clarice Lispector, quote from The Hour of the Star


“For at the hour of death you became a celebrated film star, it is a moment of glory for everyone, when the choral music scales the top notes.”
― Clarice Lispector, quote from The Hour of the Star



“And even sadness was also something for rich people, for people who could afford it, for people who didn’t have anything better to do. Sadness was a luxury.”
― Clarice Lispector, quote from The Hour of the Star


“Meanwhile, the clouds are white and the sky is blue. Why is there so much God? At the expense of men.”
― Clarice Lispector, quote from The Hour of the Star


“I cannot stand repetition: routine divides me from potential novelties within my reach.”
― Clarice Lispector, quote from The Hour of the Star


“She wasn’t crying because of the life she led: because, never having led any other, she’d accepted that with her that was just the way things were. But I also think she was crying because, through the music, she might have guessed there were other ways of feeling,”
― Clarice Lispector, quote from The Hour of the Star


“Why don’t clouds fall, since everything else does? Because gravity is less than the strength of the air that keeps them up there. Clever, right? Yes, but one day they fall as rain. That is my revenge.”
― Clarice Lispector, quote from The Hour of the Star



“Escribo porque no tengo nada que hacer en el mundo: estoy de sobra y no hay lugar para mí en la tierra de los hombres. Escribo por mi desesperación y mi cansancio, ya no soporto la rutina de ser yo, y si no existiese la novedad continua que es escribir, me moriría simbólicamente todos los días. Pero estoy preparado para salir con discreción por la puerta trasera. He experimentado casi todo, aun la pasión y su desesperanza. Ahora sólo querría tener lo que hubiera sido y no fui”
― Clarice Lispector, quote from The Hour of the Star


“First of all, I must make it clear that this girl does not know herself apart from the fact that she goes on living aimlessly. Were she foolish enough to ask herself 'Who am I?', she would fall flat on her face. For the question 'Who am I?' creates a need. And how does one satisfy that need? To probe oneself is to recognize that one is incomplete.”
― Clarice Lispector, quote from The Hour of the Star


“As soon as you discover the truth it's already gone: the moment passed. I ask: what is it? Reply: it's not.”
― Clarice Lispector, quote from The Hour of the Star


“She knew what desire was — though she didn’t know she knew. It was like this: she was starving but not for food, it was a kind of painful taste that rose from the pit of her stomach and made her nipples quiver and her arms empty without an embrace.”
― Clarice Lispector, quote from The Hour of the Star


“I am only true when I’m alone.”
― Clarice Lispector, quote from The Hour of the Star



“There are those who have. And there are those who have not. It's very simple: the girl had not. Hadn't what? Simply this: she had not. If you get my meaning that's fine. If you don't, it's still fine.”
― Clarice Lispector, quote from The Hour of the Star


“Όσο για το γράψιμο, περισσότερο αξίζει ένα ζωντανό σκυλί.”
― Clarice Lispector, quote from The Hour of the Star


“The doctor simply refused to take pity. And added: when you don’t know what to eat make a nice Italian spaghetti.”
― Clarice Lispector, quote from The Hour of the Star


“I am not an intellectual, I write with my body. And what I write is a moist fog.”
― Clarice Lispector, quote from The Hour of the Star


About the author

Clarice Lispector
Born place: in Tchetchelnik, Ukraine
Born date December 10, 1920
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“The man behind the counter seemed to have stopped listening to him. He slid a room key across the fake-wood-grain counter and returned to his scribbled lorem ipsums. Neethan could have gone on for hours with this guy, chatting him up about music made by mentally handicapped people and the myriad challenges of international aid organizations, but this was a person programmed to hand out room keys and swipe credit cards and engage in only the amount of conversation needed to keep such transactions rolling along smoothly. If that meant asking about a guest's gigantic celestial head, then that's just what good customer service was all about.”
― Ryan Boudinot, quote from Blueprints Of The Afterlife


“So much of teaching is sharing. Learning results in sharing, sharing results in change, change is learning. The only other job with so much sharing is parenting. That's probably why the two are so often confused.”
― Esmé Raji Codell, quote from Educating Esmé: Diary of a Teacher's First Year


“Do you really like Quincy or are you just saying that?" I asked.
Dylan held up his index finger and finished swallowing his toast. He looked alarmed by my question. "Quincy is fine. Why would I mind Quincy?"
"I don't know. I mean, don't you have a preference as to where we live?"
Dylan shook his head. "Not really. As long as I'm living with you, I could care less. I'd live in a closet with you for Christ's sake.”
― Rachel K. Burke, quote from Sound Bites


“ARTICLE 54 A Bro is required to go out with his Bros on St. Patty’s Day and other official Bro holidays, including Halloween, New Year’s Eve, and Desperation Day (February 13).”
― Barney Stinson, quote from The Bro Code


“Taking a deep breath and trying not to reveal my sudden feeling of inadequacy, I was about to come back with a counter offer when a knock on the window startled me and I did what I always do…I squeaked, which Tristan thought was pretty hilarious. And for whatever reason, that embarrassed me. Nooo, not telling a guy I’d need gum in order to give him a blowjob, or being more than half-naked with a guy and almost having sex for the time, nor sitting on said guy’s lap while he has an obvious erection…no, none of that embarrasses me. Nope, squeaking like a timid mouse in front of him…that’s what turns my face bright red. I’m tellin’ ya, I have issues.”
― Jenn Cooksey, quote from Shark Bait


Interesting books

Norvegų giria
(240.6K)
Norvegų giria
by Haruki Murakami
A Year of Marvellous Ways
(4.7K)
A Year of Marvellous...
by Sarah Winman
No god but God: The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam
(18.3K)
No god but God: The...
by Reza Aslan
Blue Nights
(19.2K)
Blue Nights
by Joan Didion
The Only Girl in the World: A Memoir
(2.6K)
La verdad sobre el caso Harry Quebert
(48.8K)
La verdad sobre el c...
by Joël Dicker

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.