Adolfo Bioy Casares · 103 pages
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“The sea is endless when you are in a rowboat.”
“And the reason I am so nervous is that everything I do now is leading me to one of three possible futures... Which one will it be? Time alone will tell. But still I know that writing this diary can perhaps provide the answer; it may even help produce the right future.”
“The habits of our lives makes us presume that things will happen in a certain foreseeable way, that there will be a vague coherence in the world.”
“To be on an island inhabited by artificial ghosts was the most unbearable of nightmares,- to be in love with one of those images was worse than being in love with a ghost (perhaps we always want the person we love to have the existence of a ghost).”
“No espero nada. Esto no es horrible. Después de resolverlo, he ganado tranquilidad. Pero esa mujer me ha dado una esperanza. Debo temer las esperanzas. Tal vez toda esa higiene de no esperar sea un poco ridícula. No esperar de la vida, para no arriesgarla; darse por muerto, para no morir. Ya no estoy muerto: estoy enamorado.”
“No fue como si no me hubiera oído, como si no me hubiera visto; fue como si los oídos que tenía no sirvieran para oír, como si los ojos no sirvieran para ver.”
“I do not believe that a dream should necessarily be taken for reality, or reality for madness.”
“His work seems to confirm my old axiom: it is useless to try to keep the whole body alive.”
“...when one is alone it is impossible to be dead.”
“Spontaneity is the mother of crudity.”
“Creo que perdemos la inmortalidad porque la resistencia a la muerte no ha evolucionado; sus perfeccionamientos insisten en la primera idea, rudimentaria: retener vivo todo el cuerpo. Sólo habría que buscar la conservación de lo que interesa a la conciencia.”
“I thought I had made this discovery: that there are unexpected, constant repetitions in our behavior. The right combination of circumstances had enabled me to observe them. One seldom has the chance to be a clandestine witness of several talks between the same people. But scenes are repeated in life, just as they are in the theatre.”
“Tal vez toda esa higiene de no esperar sea un poco ridícula. No esperar de la vida, para no arriesgarla; darse por muerto, para no morir.”
“Ya no estoy muerto, estoy enamorado.”
“The case of the inventor who is duped by his own invention emphasizes our need for circumspection.”
“The influence of the future on the past," said Morel enthusiastically, almost inaudibly.”
“Creio que perdemos a imortalidade porque a resistência à morte não evoluiu; seus aperfeiçoamentos insistem na ideia primitiva, rudimentar, de manter vivo todo o corpo. Só se deveria procurar conservar o que interessa para a consciência.”
“Lloré durante el sueño y desperté con una inconsolable desesperanza porque Faustine no estaba y con llorado consuelo porque nos habíamos querido sin disimulo.”
“... to his efforts to perpetuate man: but he has preserved nothing but sensations; and, although his invention was incomplete, he at least foreshadowed the truth: man will one day create human life.”
“I dreaded an invasion of ghosts or, less likely, an invasion of the police.”
“Non debbo sperare niente. Scrivo questa frase e mi viene un'idea che è una speranza.”
“Nosotros viviremos en esa fotografía, siempre”
“Es ya costumbre de mis teorías más lúcidas deshacerse al día siguiente, quedar como pruebas de una combinación asombrosa de ineptitud y entusiasmo (o desesperación). Tal vez mi idea, una vez escrita, pierda la fuerza.”
“Al hombre que, basándose en este informe, invente una máquina capaz de reunir las presencias disgregadas, haré una súplica: Búsquenos a Faustine y a mí, hágame entrar en el cielo de la conciencia de Faustine. Será un acto piadoso.”
“Non sperare dalla vita, per non rischiarla; considerarsi morto, per non morire.”
“Pero mi férrea disciplina derrota incesantemente a estas ideas, comprometedoras de la calma final.”
“Ahora la mujer del pañuelo me resulta imprescindible. Tal vez toda esa higiene de no esperar sea un poco ridícula. No esperar de la vida, para no arriesgarla; darse por muerto, para no morir.”
“Mi vida no es atroz. Si dejo las intranquilas esperanzas de partir en busca de Faustine, puedo acomodarme al destino seráfico de contemplarla.”
“¡Por eso la mató, se mató con todos sus amigos, inventó la inmortalidad!”
“La verdadera ventaja de mi solución es que hace de la muerte el requisito y la garantía de la eterna contemplación de Faustine.”
“Modern morality and manners suppress all natural instincts, keep people ignorant of the facts of nature and make them fighting drunk on bogey tales.”
“When Christians live out what the Bible teaches, we have an influence on our culture, as salt does on food or as light reveals a dark room (see 2 Cor. 2: 3; Matt. 5: 13–16). We are actively representing Christ to a needy world. As we go about our daily lives, with stale religion being pushed aside, God’s words and actions flow out of us.”
“The world owes its enchantment to these curious creatures and their fancies; but its multiple complicity rejects them. Thistledown spirits, tragic, heartrending in their evanescence, they must go blowing headlong to perdition.”
“When we consider that resources will one day be mined from planets other than the earth, that matter and energy are totally interchangeable, and that basic chemical elements can be transmuted, we realize that resource seeds are so abundant that they do not impose practical limitations on the creation of wealth at all.”
“His statement flew in the face of everything I knew. He thought of relationships as finite, like a pie that could only be cut into so many pieces. Take a piece away, and there was that much less for him. I knew, however, that relationships are more like muscles - the more you work them, the stronger they become.”
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