“There's a place beyond words where experience first occurs to which I always want to return. I suspect that whenever I articulate my thoughts or translate my impulses into words, I am betraying the real thoughts and impulses which remain hidden.”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from The Painted Bird
“It seems that what I really want is a drug that will increase my consciousness of others, not myself.”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from The Painted Bird
“Can the imagination, any more than the boy, be held prisoner ?"
- from the foreword to the 1976 edition of "The Painted Bird”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from The Painted Bird
“It mattered little if one was mute; people did not understand one another anyway. They collided with or charmed one another, hugged or trampled one another, but everyone knew only himself. His emotions, memory, and senses divided him from others as effectively as thick reeds screen the mainstream from the muddy bank. Like the mountain peaks around us, we looked at one another, separated by valleys, too high to stay unnoticed, too low to touch the heavens.”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from The Painted Bird
“One day he trapped a large raven, whose wings he painted red, the breast green, and the tail blue. When a flock of ravens appeared over our hut, Lekh freed the painted bird. As soon as it joined the flock a desperate battle began. The changeling was attacked from all sides. Black, red, green, blue feathers began to drop at our feet. The ravens ran amuck in the skies, and suddenly the painted raven plummeted to the freshly-plowed soil. It was still alive, opening its beak and vainly trying to move its wings. Its eyes had been pecked out, and fresh blood streamed over its painted feathers. It made yet another attempt to flutter up from the sticky earth, but its strength was gone.”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from The Painted Bird
“I wondered whether the loss of one's sight would deprive a person also of the memory of everything that he had seen before. If so, the man would no longer be able to see even in his dreams. if not, if only the eyeless could still see through their memory, it would not be too bad. The world seemed to be pretty much the same everywhere, and even though people differed from one another, just as animals and trees did, one should know fairly well what they looked like after seeing them for years. I had lived only seven years, but I remembered a lot of things. when I closed my eyes, many details cam back still more vividly. who knows, perhaps without his eyes the plowboy would start seeing an entirely new, more fascinating world.”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from The Painted Bird
“Wouldn't it be easier to change people's eyes and hair than to build big furnaces and then catch Jews and Gypsies to burn them?”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from The Painted Bird
“She seemed to belong to that pagan, primitive kingdom of birds and forests where everything was infinitely abundant, wild, blooming, and royal in its perpetual decay, death, and rebirth; illicit and clashing with the human world.”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from The Painted Bird
“All cats are the same in the dark, says the proverb. But it certainly did not apply to people, with them it was just the opposite. During the day they were all alike, running in their well-defined ways. At night they changed beyond recognition.”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from The Painted Bird
“At times, feeling the wind on my brow, I went numb with horror. In my imagination I saw armies of ants and cockroaches calling to one another and scurrying toward my head, to some place under the top of my skull, where they would build new nests. There they would proliferate and eat out my thoughts, one after another, until I would become as empty as the shell of a pumpkin from which all the fruit has been scraped out.”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from The Painted Bird
“Against the background of bland colors he projected an unfadable blackness. In a world of men with harrowed faces, with smashed eyes, bloody, bruised and disfigured limbs, among the fetid, broken human bodies, of which I had already seen so many, he seemed an example of neat perfection that could not be sullied: the smooth, polished skin of his face, the bright golden hair showing under his peaked cap, his pure metal eyes. Every movement of his body seemed propelled by some tremendous internal force. The granite sound of his language was ideally suited to order the death of inferior, forlorn creatures. I was stung by a twinge of envy I had never experienced before, and I admired the glittering death's-head and crossbones that embellished his tall cap. I thought how good it would be to have such a gleaming and hairless skull instead of my Gypsy face which was so feared and disliked by decent people.
The officer surveyed me sharply. I felt like a squashed caterpillar oozing in the dust, a creature that could not harm anyone yet aroused loathing and disgust. In the presence of such a resplendent being, armed in all the symbols of might and majesty, I was genuinely ashamed of my appearance. I had nothing against his killing me.”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from The Painted Bird
“The Germans puzzled me. What a waste. Was such a destitute, cruel world worth ruling?”
― Jerzy Kosiński, quote from The Painted Bird
Jerzy Kosiński
Born place: in Łódź, Poland
Born date June 14, 1933
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“After all, a man’s Life must be nailed to a cross either of Thought or Action. Without work there is no play. When I am in the Socratic”
― Winston S. Churchill, quote from My Early Life, 1874-1904
“Suppose the god, the goal of progress, is changing. Then progress becomes impossible. How could we progress toward a goal that keeps receding? How could a runner make progress toward a finish line if someone kept moving it as he ran?”
― Peter Kreeft, quote from Socrates Meets Jesus: History's Greatest Questioner Confronts the Claims of Christ
“Repentance is only one part of our response to Christ (and even the strength to repent comes from God). But it is an essential part, for without it we cannot claim Christ is our Lord. The Bible says, “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret” (2 Cor. 7:10 NIV).”
― Billy Graham, quote from Hope for Each Day: Words of Wisdom and Faith
“It’s right he’s paying you, as you were hurt on his job, and he can well afford it. Doing so shows his character, just as fretting over it shows yours.”
― Nora Roberts, quote from Heart of the Sea
“People are so damn sensitive about colour around here that you can’t even ask a barman for a jigger of rum. You have to ask for a jegro.”
― Ian Fleming, quote from Diamonds are Forever
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An Artificial NightBookQuoters 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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