Alexandria Quartet Quotes

Does not everything depend on our interpretation of the silence around us?

There are only three things to be done with a woman. You can love her, suffer for her, or turn her into literature.

A city becomes a world when one loves one of its inhabitants.

We are all hunting for rational reasons for believing in the absurd.

Who invented the human heart, I wonder? Tell me, and then show me the place where he was hanged.

I am quite alone. I am neither happy nor unhappy; I lie suspended like a hair or a feather in the cloudy mixtures of memory.

Odd, isn't it? He really was the right man for her in a sort of way; but then as you know, it is a law of love that the so-called 'right' person always comes to soon or too late.

Gamblers and lovers really play to lose.

These are the moments which are not calculable, and cannot be assessed in words; they live on in the solution of memory, like wonderful creatures, unique of their own kind, dredged up from the floors of some unexplored ocean.

Science is the poetry of the intellect and poetry the science of the heart's affections.

Love is like trench warfare - you cannot see the enemy, but you know he is there and that it is wiser to keep your head down.

إنه لأمر فظيع أن يلوم الإنسان نفسه فوق ما يُعانيه من شقاء وعذاب.

The world is like a cucumber—today it's in your hand, tomorrow up your arse.

Art like life is an open secret.

You see, nothing matters except pleasure - which is the opposite of happiness, its tragic part, I expect.

A diary is the last place to go if you wish to seek the truth about a person. Nobody dares to make the final confession to themselves on paper: or at least, not about love.

Like all young men I set out to be a genius, but mercifully laughter intervened.

Life is more complicated than we think, yet far simpler than anyone dares to imagine

Art—the meaning of the pattern of our common actions in reality. The cloth-of-gold that hides behind the sackcloth of reality, forced out by the pain of human memory.

Very few people realise that sex is a psychic and not a physical act. The clumsy coupling of human beings is simply a biological paraphrase of this truth - a primitive method of introducing minds to each other, engaging them. But most people are stuck in the physical aspect, unaware of the poetic rapport which it so clumsily tries to teach.

Look at all the Eastern writers who've written great Western literature. Kazuo Ishiguro. You'd never guess that The Remains of the Day or Never Let Me Go were written by a Japanese guy. But I can't think of anyone who's ever done the reverse-- any Westerner who's written great Eastern literature. Well, maybe if we count Lawrence Durrell - does the Alexandria Quartet qualify as Eastern literature?" "There is a very simple test," said Vikram. "Is it about bored, tired people having sex?" "Yes," said the convert, surprised. "Then it's western.

It is hard to fight with one's heart's desires; whatever it wishes to get, it purchases at the cost of the soul.

I suppose the secret of his success is in his tremendous idleness which almost approaches the supernatural.

We live" writes Pursewarden somewhere, "lives based upon selected fictions. Our view of reality is conditioned by our position in space and time - not by our personalities as we like to think. Thus every interpretation of reality is based upon a unique position. Two paces east or west and the whole picture is changed.

I have been thinking about the girl I met last night in the mirror: dark on the marble-ivory white: glossy black hair: deep suspiring eyes in which one's glances sink because they are nervous, curious, turned to sexual curiosity.

I am just a refugee from the long slow toothache of English life. It is terrible to love life so much you can hardly breathe!

I have done so many things in my life," she said to the mirror. "Evil things, perhaps. But never unattentively, never wastefully...was I wrong?

الكراهية ما هى إلا حب لم يتحقق.

إننا نستخدم بعضنا البعض كمعاول نهدم بها هؤلاء الذين نحبهم حبا حقيقيا.

What do you believe? You never say anything. At the most you sometimes laugh.

There are only three things to be done with a woman’ said Clea once. ‘You can love her, suffer for her, or turn her into literature.

People only see in us the contemptible skirt-fever which rules our actions but completely miss the beauty-hunger underlying it.

He thought and suffered a good deal but he lacked the resolution to dare--the first requisite of a practitioner.

Balthazar sighed and said "Truth naked and unashamed. That's a splendid phrase. But we always see her as she seems, never as she is. Each man has his own interpretation.

She took kisses like so many coats of paint […] how long and how vainly I searched for excuses which might make her amorality if not palatable at lest understandable. I realize now the time I wasted in this way; instead of enjoying her and turning aside from these preoccupations with the thought, ‘She is untrustworthy as she is beautiful. She takes love as plants do water, lightly, thoughtlessly.

أسوأ فشل عانيته هو فشلى مع الناس: ولقد كان ذلك نتاج انفصال روحى أخذ يزداد بالتدريج، انفصال نهائى عن التملك بينما أطلق لى العنان كى أتعاطف مع الناس. وغدوت شيئا فشيئا وعلى نحو لا يمكن تفسيره أشد عجزا عن ممارسة الحب.

اننا عادة ما نولد لكي نحب هؤلاء الذين يصيبوننا بالجراح اكثر من غيرهم رباعية الإسكندرية - بلتازار

One word ‘love’ has to do service for so many different kinds of the same animal.

The loved object is simply one that has shared an experience at the same moment of time, narcissistically; and the desire to be near the beloved object is at first not due to the idea of possessing it, but simply to let the two experiences compare themselves, like reflections in different mirrors. All this may precede the first look, kiss, or touch; precede ambition, pride, or envy; precede the first declarations which mark the turning point—for from here love degenerates into habit, possession, and back to loneliness.

But I love to feel events overlapping each other, crawling over one another like wet crabs in a basket

Poverty is a great cutter-off and riches a great shutter-off.

The steward, according to custom, had stopped all the clocks. This, in the language of Narouz, said, "Your stay with us is so brief, let us not be reminded of the flight of the hours. God made eternity. Let us escape from the despotism of time altogether." These ancient and hereditary politenesses filled Nessim with emotion.

مظهره الخارجى لم يحمل أى إشارة تنبئ عن هذه الصراعات، فقد ظل حديثه جافا موزونا رغم حمى الأفكار التى تكمن وراءه.

For us artists there waits the joyous compromise through art with all that wounded or defeated us in daily life; in this way, not to evade destiny, as do the ordinary people, but to fulfill it in its true potential - the imagination.

Her efforts to achieve herself had led her always towards, and not away from him.

إن الحب يغدو أكثر صدقا إذا كان مصدره التعاطف لا الشهوة، لأنه لا يترك حينئذ أى جراح.

Each of our five senses contains an art.

إن المرء يحتاج لقدر هائل من الجهل حتى يقرب الله، وأعتقد أننى كنت أعرف على الدوام أكثر مما يجب.

He hablado de la inutilidad del arte, pero no he dicho la verdad sobre el consuelo que procura.

إننى الوحدة ذاتها.

I realized then the truth about all love: that it is an absolute which takes all or forfeits all. The other feelings, compassion, tenderness and so on, exist only on the periphery and belong on the constructions of society and habit. But she herself- austere and merciless Aphrodite-is a pagan. it is not our brains or instincts which she picks-but our very bones.

I love the French edition with its uncut pages. I would not want a reader too lazy to use a knife on me.

Youth is the age of despairs.

الحب ليس إلا نوعا من اللغة التى يتحدث بها الجسد.

ما أعجب الغيرة وما أدنأها. غير أن الغيرة النابعة من خيال العاشق تنتهى إلى أن تكون أمرا مثيرا للسخرية.

عرفت فى مسلكه الفظ واكتآبه الإرهاق الذى يلاحق الفنان عندما يصل بواحدة من أعماله إلى نهايتها. تلك هى لحظات الهبوط النفسى عندما تبدأ هواجس الانتحار فى الانتعاش من جديد.

إن التجاعيد تترك على مر الأيام بصمات أشد عمقا.

إن كل إنسان يغادر هذا العالم على أنغام موسيقاه الخاصة.

لم تفعل أى من الديانات أكثر من المنع والحرمان وإضافة قائمة طويلة من المحرمات. إلا أن المحرمات تخلق الرغبة التى أرادت الأديان علاجها.

She gave me the impression of someone engaged in giving a series of savage caricatures of herself — but this is common to most lonely people who feel that their true self can find no correspondence in another.

the desire to be near the beloved object is at first not due to the idea of possessing it, but simply to let the two experiences compare themselves, like reflections in different mirrors... For from here love degenerates into habit, possession, and back to loneliness.

Shyness has laws: you can only give yourself, tragically, to those who least understand.

Perhaps our only sickness is to desire a truth which we cannot bear rather than to rest content with the fictions we manufacture out of each other.

The most tender, the most tragic of illusions is perhaps to believe that our actions can add or subtract from the total quantity of good and evil in the world.

إنني اعتقد أن الأحداث ما هي إلا تفسير لمشاعرنا، يمكن ان تقودنا واحدة منها إلى الأخرى. الزمن يحملنا إلى الأمام بقوة تلك المشاعر التي تعيش في أعماقنا والتي لا نعي عنها إلا القليل.

But there are more than five sexes and only demotic Greek seems to distinguish among them.

There is never enough light.” To which I responded without thought: “For women perhaps. We men are less exigent.

كان متنبها إلى أن تغييرا فى طبيعته يتم فى أعماقه وأن هذا التغيير ينفض عنه أخيرا ذلك الشلل الطويل، شلل الحب العاجز الذى كان يسيطر على أفعاله.

ويكتب بورسواردن: "فى البداية نسعى كى نملأ بالحب فراغ ذواتنا ونستمتع لحظة قصيرة بوهم الكمال. لكن ذلك ليس إلا وهما. حيث إن هذا المخلوق الغريب الذى أعتقدنا أنه سيصلنا بجسد العالم، قد نجح فى النهاية، فى فصلناعنه فصلا تاما. الحب يصل ثم يفرق وإلا فكيف لنا أن ننمو؟

And I saw her as a sad thirtieth child of Valentine that fell, not as Lucifer rebelling against God, but because she too passionately wanted to be united with him! All things in excess become sin.

Underneath an artist's preoccupations with sex, society, religion, etc. (all the staple abstractions that allow the forebrain to chatter) there is a soul tortured beyond endurance by the lack of tenderness in the world.

In her, as an Alexandrian, licence was in a curious way a form of self-abnegation, a travesty of freedom; and if I saw her as an exemplar of the city it was not of Alexandria, or Plotinus that I was forced to think, but of the sad thirtieth child of Valentinus who fell, ‘not like Lucifer by rebelling against God, but by desiring too ardently to be united to him’.*

In these days Melissa's absorbed and provoking gentleness had all the qualities of a rediscovered youth. Her long uncertain fingers - I used to feel them moving over my face when she thought I slept, as if to memorize the happiness we had shared. In her there was a pliancy, a resilience which was Oriental - a passion to serve. My shabby clothes - the way she picked up a dirty shirt seemed to engulf it with an overflowing solicitude; in the morning I found my razor beautifully cleaned and even the toothpaste laid upon the brush in readiness. Her care for me was a goad, provoking me to give my life some sort of shape and style that might match the simplicity of hers. Of her experiences in love she would never speak, turning from them with a weariness and distaste which suggested that they had been born of necessity rather than desire. She paid me the comlpiment of saying: "For the first time I am not afraid to be light-headed or foolish with a man".

If she ever knew me at all she must later have discovered that for those of us who feel deeply and who are at all conscious of the inextricable tangle of human thought there is only one response to be made—ironic tenderness and silence.

إن الأحداث البعيدة تكتسب وقد حولتها وغيرتها الذاكرة لمعاناً مصقولا لأنها ترى في عزلتها، مفصولة عن التفاصيل السابقة واللاحقة عن خيوط الزمن ولفافاته. إن ممثلي الأحداث يعانون أيضاً التحويل والتغير، ويغطسون في بطء، أعمق فأعمق في محيط الذاكرة كالأجساد مثقلة، ويجدون عند كل مستوى في القلب الانساني تقديراً جديداً، وتقييماً جديداً

For years one has to put up with the feeling that people do not care, really care, about one; then one day with growing alarm, one realizes that it is God who does not care; and not merely that he does not care, he does not care one way or the other.

أفكر في أن المدينة كالانسان تجمع ميولها وشهواتها ومخاوفها. إنها تنمو حتى تبلغ النضج وتقدم أنبياءها، ثم تنحدر إلى التبلد أو الشيخوخة أو الوحدة وهي أسوأ من كليهما. والأحياء لا يزلن يجلسن على قارعة الطريق، لا يدرين أن المدينة تموت، يجلسن كالتماثيل المنصوبة يسندن الظلام، وآلآم المستقبل ترقد فوق جفونهن، ترقب في يقظة، الباحثين عن الخلود عبر كل تنبؤات الزمن

She looked like a statue of pride hanging its head.

إن تداخل الحقائق هو الطريقة الوحيدة كى تكون أمينا مع الزمن، حاشد فى كل لحظة باحتمالات لانهائية التكاثر. والحياة تتوقف على فعل الاختيار، أبدية الدينونة، وأبدية الانتقاء.

...man is only an extension of the spirit of place.

And morality is nothing if it is merely a form of good behavior.

For all drama creates bondage, and the actor is only significant to the degree that he is bound.

El dolor mismo es el único elemento de la memoria; porque el placer termina en sí mismo

Cuesta mucho luchar contra el deseo del corazón; todo lo que quiere obtener, lo compra al precio del alma.

Is it any wonder that I absent-mindedly take the entrance marked Aliens Only whenever I enter?

إننا جميعا نسعى حتى نصل إلى أسباب معقولة لإيماننا بالمستحيل.

الأخلاق لا شئ إن كانت مجرد شكل مظهرى للسلوك الطيب.

My friends must all have known all along. Yet nobody breathed a word. But of course, the truth is that nobody ever does breathe a word, nobody interferes, nobody whispers while the acrobat is on the tight-rope; they just sit and watch the spectacle, waiting only to be wise after the event.

إننى أعتقد، أنه من الأفضل لنا أن ندير ظهورنا بوضوح للكلمات الرنانة مثل "الجمال" و"الحقيقة" وما الى ذلك. هل ترين ما أرى؟ إننا سخفاء للغاية، وضعاف العقول عندما نتناول أمور الحياة،لكننا عمالقة عندما نحكم على الكون.

Landscape-tones: brown to bronze, steep skyline, low cloud, pearl ground with shadowed oyster and violet reflections. The lion-dust of desert: prophets’ tombs turned to zinc and copper at sunset on the ancient lake.

None of the great religions have done more than exclude, throw out a long range of prohibitions. But prohibitions create the desire they are intended to cure. We of this Cabal say: indulge but refine. We are enlisting everything in order to make man's wholeness match the wholeness of the universe--even pleasure, the destructive granulation of the mind in pleasure.

لقد كان مستعدا أن يعانى كل هذا طالما ظلت المعاناة تحت سيطرة وعيه وإدراكه. لم يكن يخشى غير الشعور بالوحدة الكاملة، كان يدرك عجزه عن إطلاع أى من أصدقائه أو الأطباء، الذين يحتمل استدعاءهم ليفحصوت تصرفاته الشاذة ولا يرون فيها غير أعراض اضطرابه، على تلك الحقيقة.

A good doctor, and in a special sense the psychologist, makes it quite deliberately, slightly harder for the patient to recover too easily. You do this to see if his psyche has any real bounce in it, for the secret of healing is in the patient and not the doctor.

خوفه القديم من الجنون تقدم هنا وأمسك بتلابيبه، وأخل بتوازنه الجسدى، حتى أنه بدأ يعانى من نوبات دوار كانت تجبره على أن يتحسس ما حوله كالأعمى يبحث عن شئ يجلس عليه، مقعد أو كنبه. إنه يجلس وهو يلهث قليلا ويحس العرق وقد بدأ يتصبب من جبينه، غير أنه كان يحس بالارتياح لأن أحدا من العابرين لن يرى شيئا مما يعانيه من صراع داخلى.

that only there, in the silences of the painter or the writer can reality be reordered, reworked and made to show its significant side. Our common actions in reality are simply the sackcloth covering which hides the cloth-of-gold — the meaning of the pattern. For us artists there waits the joyous compromise through art with all that wounded or defeated us in daily life; in this way, not to evade destiny, as the ordinary people try to do, but to fulfil it in its true potential — the imagination.

No one thing can explain everything; though everything can illuminate something. God, I must be still drunk. If God were anything he would be an art. Sculpture or medicine. But the immense extension of knowledge in this our age, the growth of new sciences, makes it almost impossible for us to digest the available flavours and put them to use.

Neden gülüyorsun? En ciddi şeylere bile her zaman gülersin. Ah, öyle ya, üzülmen mi gerekir?" Beni biraz olsun tanısaydı, bizim gibi her şeyi derinlemesine duyan, insan düşüncesinin içinden çıkılmaz düğümünün tam anlamıyla bilincinde olan insanlar için verilecek tek bir yanıt -alaylı bir sevecenlik ve suskunluk- olduğunu daha sonra kendisi de anlardı.

Africa, which they had somehow visualized as an extension of Europe -- an extension of terms, of references to a definitive past -- had already asserted itself as something different: a forbidding darkness where the croaking ravens matched the dry exclamations of spiritless men, and rationed laughter fashioned from breath simply the chattering of baboons. Sometimes they captured someone -- a solitary frightened man out hunting hares -- and were amazed to see that he was human like themselves.

It was cold in the street and I crossed to the lighted blaze of shops in Rue Fuad. In a grocer’s window I saw a small tin of olives with the name Orvieto on it, and overcome by a sudden longing to be on the right side of the Mediterranean, entered the shop: bought it: had it opened there and then: and sitting down at a marble table in that gruesome light I began to eat Italy, its dark scorched flesh, hand-modelled spring soil, dedicated vines. I felt that Melissa would never understand this. I should have to pretend I had lost the money. I did not see at first the great car which she had abandoned in the street with its engine running. She came into the shop with swift and resolute suddenness and said, with the air of authority that Lesbians, or women with money, assume with the obviously indigent: ‘What did you mean by your remark about the antinomian nature of irony?’ — or some such sally which I have forgotten.

Idle, she writes, to imagine falling in love as a correspondence of minds, of thoughts,; it is a simultaneous firing of two spirits engaged in the autonomous act of growing up. And the sensation is of something having noiselessly exploded inside each of them. Around this event, dazed and preoccupied, the lover moves examining her or her own experience; her gratitude alone, stretching away towards a mistaken donor, creates the illusion that she communicates with her fellow, but this is false. The loved object is simply one that has shared an experience at the same moment of time, narcissistically; and the desire to be near the beloved object is at first not due to the idea of possessing it, but simply to let the two experiences compare themselves, like reflections in different mirrors. All this may precede the first look, kiss, or touch; precede ambition, pride or envy; precede the first declarations which mark the turning point--for from here love degenerates into habit, possession, and back to loneliness.