Quotes from The Hour of the Star

“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

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“Deception is the natural defence of the weak against the strong, and the South used it for many years against its conquerors; to-day it must be prepared to see its black proletariat turn that same two-edged weapon against itself. And how natural this is! The death of Denmark Vesey and Nat Turner proved long since to the Negro the present hopelessness of physical defence. Political defence is becoming less and less available, and economic defence is still only partially effective. But there is a patent defence at hand,—the defence of deception and flattery, of cajoling and lying. It is the same defence which peasants of the Middle Age used and which left its stamp on their character for centuries. To-day the young Negro of the South who would succeed cannot be frank and outspoken, honest and self-assertive, but rather he is daily tempted to be silent and wary, politic and sly; he must flatter and be pleasant, endure petty insults with a smile, shut his eyes to wrong; in too many cases he sees positive personal advantage in deception and lying. His real thoughts, his real aspirations, must be guarded in whispers; he must not criticise, he must not complain. Patience, humility, and adroitness must, in these growing black youth, replace impulse, manliness, and courage. With this sacrifice there is an economic opening, and perhaps peace and some prosperity. Without this there is riot, migration, or crime. Nor is this situation peculiar to the Southern United States, is it not rather the only method by which undeveloped races have gained the right to share modern culture? The price of culture is a Lie.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, quote from The Souls of Black Folk

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― Octavio Paz, quote from The Labyrinth of Solitude and Other Writings

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― Annabel Pitcher, quote from Ketchup Clouds

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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.

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