“
You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche
“
I love you. Remember. They cannot take it
”
”
Lauren Oliver (Delirium (Delirium, #1))
“
L'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle.
"It means that love is the most powerful force in the world. That love can do anything.
”
”
Cassandra Clare (City of Fallen Angels (The Mortal Instruments, #4))
“
Amor Fati – “Love Your Fate”, which is in fact your life.
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche
“
L'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle.
”
”
Dante Alighieri (The Divine Comedy)
“
Then love knew it was called love.
And when I lifted my eyes to your name,
suddenly your heart showed me my way
”
”
Pablo Neruda (Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada; Cien sonetos de amor)
“
Ella me daba la mano y no hacía falta más. Me alcanzaba para sentir que era bien acogido. Más que besarla, más que acostarnos juntos, más que ninguna otra cosa, ella me daba la mano y eso era amor.
”
”
Mario Benedetti (La tregua)
“
if a man does not master his circumstances then he is bound to be mastered by them.
”
”
Amor Towles (A Gentleman in Moscow)
“
One likes to think there's something in it, that old platitude amor vincit omnia. But if I've learned one thing in my short sad life, it is that that particular platitude is a lie. Love doesn't conquer everything. And whoever thinks it does is a fool.
”
”
Donna Tartt (The Secret History)
“
Amor vincit omnia, et nos cedamus amori.
Love conquers all things, so we too shall yield to love.
”
”
Virgil (Eclogues)
“
...what matters in life is not whether we receive a round of applause; what matters is whether we have the courage to venture forth despite the uncertainty of acclaim.
”
”
Amor Towles (A Gentleman in Moscow)
“
Lo que mucha gente llama amar consiste en elegir una mujer y casarse con ella. La eligen, te lo juro, los he visto. Como si se pudiera elegir en el amor, como si no fuera un rayo que te parte los huesos y te deja estaqueado en la mitad del patio. Vos dirás que la eligen porque-la-aman, yo creo que es al vesre. A Beatriz no se la elige, a Julieta no se la elige. Vos no elegís la lluvia que te va a calar hasta los huesos cuando salís de un concierto.
”
”
Julio Cortázar (Rayuela)
“
Cada vez que te enamores no expliques a nadie nada, deja que el amor te invada sin entrar en pormenores
”
”
Mario Benedetti
“
And then there was you. You changed everything I believed in. You know that line from Dante that I quoted to you in the park? 'L'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle'?"
Her lips curled a little at the sides as she looked up at him. "I still don't speak Italian."
"It's a bit of the very last verse from Paradiso - Dante's Paradise. 'My will and my desire were turned by love, the love that moves the sun and the other stars.' Dante was trying to explain faith, I think, as an overpowering love, and maybe it's blasphemous, but that's how I think of the way I love you. You came into my life and suddenly I had one truth to hold on to - that I loved you, and you loved me.
”
”
Cassandra Clare (City of Fallen Angels (The Mortal Instruments, #4))
“
Si alguien me hubiera advetido de lo que dolía el amor, hubiera evitado enamorarme de ella. Pero, ¿a quién quería engañar? Era mentira. La habría amado igual.
”
”
Alessandra Neymar (Mírame y dispara)
“
A stranger is shot in the street, you hardly move to help. But if, half an hour before, you spent just ten minutes with the fellow and knew a little about him and his family, you might just jump in front of his killer and try to stop it. Really knowing is good. Not knowing, or refusing to know is bad, or amoral, at least. You can’t act if you don’t know.
”
”
Ray Bradbury (Something Wicked This Way Comes)
“
It is a lovely oddity of human nature that a person is more inclined to interrupt two people in conversation than one person alone with a book.
”
”
Amor Towles (Rules of Civility)
“
...be careful when choosing what you're proud of--because the world has every intention of using it against you.
”
”
Amor Towles (Rules of Civility)
“
me atormenta tu amor que no me sirve de puente porque un puente no se sostiene de un solo lado...
”
”
Julio Cortázar (Hopscotch)
“
Amor verus numquam moritur...
”
”
Cassandra Clare (Clockwork Angel (The Infernal Devices, #1))
“
I am fond of music I think because it is so amoral. Everything else is moral and I am after something that isn't. I have always found moralizing intolerable.
”
”
Hermann Hesse (Demian)
“
L'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle
”
”
Cassandra Clare (City of Fallen Angels (The Mortal Instruments, #4))
“
Música! Melancólico alimento para los que vivimos de amor.
”
”
Julio Cortázar (Rayuela)
“
Amor, ch'al cor gentile ratto s'apprende
prese costui de la bella persona
che mi fu tolta; e 'l modo ancor m'offende.
Amor, che a nullo amato amar perdona,
Mi prese del costui piacer sì forte,
Che, come vedi, ancor non m'abbandona..."
"Love, which quickly arrests the gentle heart,
Seized him with my beautiful form
That was taken from me, in a manner which still grieves me.
Love, which pardons no beloved from loving,
took me so strongly with delight in him
That, as you see, it still abandons me not...
”
”
Dante Alighieri (Inferno)
“
Fate would not have the reputation it has, if it simply did what it seemed it would do.
”
”
Amor Towles (A Gentleman in Moscow)
“
I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who make things beautiful. Amor fati: let that be my love henceforth! I do not want to wage war against what is ugly. I do not want to accuse; I do not even want to accuse those who accuse. Looking away shall be my only negation. And all in all and on the whole: some day I wish to be only a Yes-sayer.
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs)
“
After all, what can a first impression tell us about someone we’ve just met for a minute in the lobby of a hotel? For that matter, what can a first impression tell us about anyone? Why, no more than a chord can tell us about Beethoven, or a brushstroke about Botticelli. By their very nature, human beings are so capricious, so complex, so delightfully contradictory, that they deserve not only our consideration, but our reconsideration—and our unwavering determination to withhold our opinion until we have engaged with them in every possible setting at every possible hour.
”
”
Amor Towles (A Gentleman in Moscow)
“
Y debo decir que confío plenamente en la casualidad de haberte conocido. Que nunca intentaré olvidarte, y que si lo hiciera, no lo conseguiría. Que me encanta mirarte y que te hago mío con solo verte de lejos. Que adoro tus lunares y tu pecho me parece el paraíso. Que no fuiste el amor de mi vida, ni de mis días, ni de mi momento. Pero que te quise, y que te quiero, aunque estemos destinados a no ser.
”
”
Julio Cortázar
“
El amor más hermoso es un cálculo equivocado, una excepción que confirma la regla, aquello para lo que siempre habías utilizado la palabra "nunca".
Niki - Perdona si te llamo amor.
”
”
Federico Moccia
“
For as it turns out, one can revisit the past quite pleasantly, as long as one does so expecting nearly every aspect of it to have changed.
”
”
Amor Towles (A Gentleman in Moscow)
“
The moon asked me to meet her in a field tonight. I think she has amorous ideas.
”
”
null
“
If patience wasn’t so easily tested, then it would hardly be a virtue. . .
”
”
Amor Towles (A Gentleman in Moscow)
“
Creo en instantes. Creo que puedes enamorarte muchas veces a lo largo de la vida; de la misma persona, de otras distintas, de ti mismo o solo de momentos.
”
”
Alice Kellen (Nosotros en la Luna)
“
If we only fell in love with people who were perfect for us...then there wouldn't be so much fuss about love in the first place.
”
”
Amor Towles (Rules of Civility)
“
Y solo por amor se extingue una estrella, si ha elegido libremente su final.
”
”
Kerstin Gier (Smaragdgrün (Edelstein-Trilogie, #3))
“
In our twenties, when there is still so much time ahead of us, time that seems ample for a hundred indecisions, for a hundred visions and revisions—we draw a card, and we must decide right then and there whether to keep that card and discard the next, or discard the first card and keep the second. And before we know it, the deck has been played out and the decisions we have just made will shape our lives for decades to come.
”
”
Amor Towles (Rules of Civility)
“
There is a law somewhere that says that when one person is thoroughly smitten with the other, the other must unavoidably be smitten as well. Amor ch’a null’amato amar perdona. Love, which exempts no one who’s loved from loving, Francesca’s words in the Inferno. Just wait and be hopeful. I was hopeful, though perhaps this was what I had wanted all along. To wait forever.
”
”
André Aciman (Call Me by Your Name)
“
My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it—all idealism is mendaciousness in the face of what is necessary—but love it
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche (On the Genealogy of Morals / Ecce Homo)
“
Las mejores palabras de amor están entre dos gentes que no se dicen nada.
”
”
Jaime Sabines
“
Here, indeed, was a formidable sentence--one that was on intimate terms with a comma, and that held the period in healthy disregard.
”
”
Amor Towles (A Gentleman in Moscow)
“
El amor es una enfermedad en un mundo en que lo único natural es el odio
”
”
José Emilio Pacheco (Las batallas en el desierto)
“
Necesito una respuesta en este momento, el amor no se piensa, se siente o no se siente.
”
”
Laura Esquivel (Like Water for Chocolate)
“
Amor deliria nervosa: It affects your mind so that you cannot think clearly, or make rational decisions about your own well-being. Symptom number twelve.
”
”
Lauren Oliver (Requiem (Delirium, #3))
“
Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero tal vez la quiero.
Es tan corto el amor, y es tan largo el olvido.
”
”
Pablo Neruda (Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair)
“
For what matters in life is not whether we receive a round of applause; what matters is whether we have the courage to venture forth despite the uncertainty of acclaim.
”
”
Amor Towles (A Gentleman in Moscow)
“
ma gia volgena il mio disio e'l velle
si come rota ch'igualmente e mossa,
l'amor che move: i sole e l'altre stelle
...as a wheel turns smoothtly, free from jars, my will and my desire were turned by love, The love that moves the sun and the other stars.
”
”
Dante Alighieri (Paradiso (The Divine Comedy, #3))
“
He had said that our lives are steered by uncertainties, many of which are disruptive or even daunting; but that if we persevere and remain generous of heart, we may be granted a moment of lucidity—a moment in which all that has happened to us suddenly comes into focus as a necessary course of events, even as we find ourselves on the threshold of the life we had been meant to lead all along.
”
”
Amor Towles (A Gentleman in Moscow)
“
Me refiero al amor –susurró en voz baja-. Cuando amas a alguien, sientes algo aquí –añadió, colocando su mano sobre el corazón de Uri-. Tan fuerte que parece que no puedes respirar. Tan intenso que deseas estar siempre con esa persona y no separarte de ella nunca más.
”
”
Laura Gallego García (Donde los árboles cantan)
“
I don't fancy colors of the face, I'm always attracted to colors of the brain.
”
”
Michael Bassey Johnson
“
Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero cuánto la quise.
Mi voz buscaba el viento para tocar su oído.
De otro. Será de otro. Como antes de mis besos.
Su voz, su cuerpo claro. Sus ojos infinitos.
Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero tal vez la quiero.
Es tan corto el amor, y es tan largo el olvido.
Porque en noches como ésta la tuve entre mis brazos,
mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.
Aunque éste sea el último dolor que ella me causa,
y éstos sean los últimos versos que yo le escribo.
”
”
Pablo Neruda (100 Love Sonnets)
“
Manners are not like bonbons, Nina. You may not choose the ones that suit you best; and you certainly cannot put the half-bitten ones back in the box.
”
”
Amor Towles (A Gentleman in Moscow)
“
El amor no entiende de tiempo. Cuando llega, llega, y no importa que conozcas a esa persona desde hace cinco años o de sólo un simple cruce de miradas. Porque el amor es algo tan poderoso que escapa al control del tiempo, simplemente porque es algo que no se puede medir con nada.
Jade
”
”
Lena Valenti (El libro de Jade (Saga Vanir #1))
“
Qué fácil callar, ser serena y objetiva con los seres que no me interesan verdaderamente, a cuyo amor o amistad no aspiro. Soy entonces calma, cautelosa, perfecta dueña de mí misma. Pero con los poquísimos seres que me interesan… Allí está la cuestión absurda: soy una convulsión, un grito, sangre aullando.
”
”
Alejandra Pizarnik (Diarios)
“
As a quick aside, let me observe that in moments of high emotion....if the next thing you're going to say makes you feel better, then it's probably the wrong thing to say. This is one of the finer maxims that I've discovered in life. And you can have it, since it's been of no use to me.
”
”
Amor Towles (Rules of Civility)
“
—Pero no llevamos juntos ni venticuatro horas. No quiero engañarte hablando de amor y de sentimientos. Sólo sé que hoy me gustas más que ayer. Y, posiblemente, menos que mañana.
—¿Posiblemente?
—Posiblemente, posible.
”
”
Blue Jeans (¡Buenos días, princesa! (El club de los incomprendidos, #1))
“
To what end, he wondered, had the Divine created the stars in heaven to fill a man with feelings of inspiration one day and insignificance the next?
”
”
Amor Towles (A Gentleman in Moscow)
“
It is a sad but unavoidable fact of life," he began, "that as we age our social circles grow smaller. Whether from increased habit or diminished vigor, we suddenly find ourselves in the company of just a few familiar faces.
”
”
Amor Towles (A Gentleman in Moscow)
“
Te quiero, sí, te quiero: pero a medida de que te quiero se me van haciendo innecesarias las palabras.
”
”
Jaime Sabines (Los amorosos: Cartas a Chepita)
“
- Soy feliz. Jamás me he sentido tan bien, ¿y tu?
- ¿Yo? - Step la abraza con fuerza-. Estoy de maravilla.
- ¿Hasta el punto de llegar a tocar el cielo con un dedo?
- No, así no.
- ¿Ah, no?
- Mucho más. Al menos tres metros sobre el cielo.
”
”
Federico Moccia
“
Young girls are like helpless children in the hands of amorous men, whatever is said to them is true and whatever manipulation on their bodies seems like love to them, sooner or later, they come back to their senses, but the scars are not dead inasmuch as her spoiler lives.
”
”
Michael Bassey Johnson (Scars Of Beauty)
“
That's the problem with living in New York. You've got no New York to run away to.
”
”
Amor Towles (Rules of Civility)
“
No matter how much time passes, those we have loved never slip away from us entirely.
”
”
Amor Towles (A Gentleman in Moscow)
“
Indians are the Italians of Asia and vice versa. Every man in both countries is a singer when he is happy, and every woman is a dancer when she walks to the shop at the corner. For them, food is the music inside the body and music is the food inside the heart. Amore or Pyar makes every man a poet, a princess of peasant girl if only for second eyes of man and woman meets.
”
”
Gregory David Roberts (Shantaram)
“
Amor"
So many days, oh so many days
seeing you so tangible and so close,
how do I pay, with what do I pay?
The bloodthirsty spring
has awakened in the woods.
The foxes start from their earths,
the serpents drink the dew,
and I go with you in the leaves
between the pines and the silence,
asking myself how and when
I will have to pay for my luck.
Of everything I have seen,
it's you I want to go on seeing:
of everything I've touched,
it's your flesh I want to go on touching.
I love your orange laughter.
I am moved by the sight of you sleeping.
What am I to do, love, loved one?
I don't know how others love
or how people loved in the past.
I live, watching you, loving you.
Being in love is my nature.
You please me more each afternoon.
Where is she? I keep on asking
if your eyes disappear.
How long she's taking! I think, and I'm hurt.
I feel poor, foolish and sad,
and you arrive and you are lightning
glancing off the peach trees.
That's why I love you and yet not why.
There are so many reasons, and yet so few,
for love has to be so,
involving and general,
particular and terrifying,
joyful and grieving,
flowering like the stars,
and measureless as a kiss.
That's why I love you and yet not why.
There are so many reasons, and yet so few,
for love has to be so,
involving and general,
particular and terrifying,
joyful and grieving,
flowering like the stars,
and measureless as a kiss.
”
”
Pablo Neruda (Intimacies: Poems of Love)
“
On those we love:
"Every year that passed, it seemed a little more of her had slipped away; and I began to fear that one day I would come to forget her altogether. But the truth is: No matter how much time passes, those we have loved never slip away from us entirely.
”
”
Amor Towles (A Gentleman in Moscow)
“
Slurring is the cursive of speech...
”
”
Amor Towles (Rules of Civility)
“
...the tenure of friendships has never been governed by the passage of time.
”
”
Amor Towles (A Gentleman in Moscow)
“
Every lover is a soldier.
”
”
Ovid (Amores)
“
Without a doubt. But imagining what might happen if one’s circumstances were different was the only sure route to madness.
”
”
Amor Towles (A Gentleman in Moscow)
“
True freedom is not advanced in the permissive society, which confuses freedom with license to do anything whatever and which in the name of freedom proclaims a kind of general amorality. It is a caricature of freedom to claim that people are free to organize their lives with no reference to moral values, and to say that society does not have to ensure the protection and advancement of ethical values. Such an attitude is destructive of freedom and peace.
”
”
Pope John Paul II
“
Now I am going to reveal to you something which is very pure, a totally white thought. It is always in my heart; it blooms at each of my steps... The Dance is love, it is only love, it alone, and that is enough... I, then, it is amorously that I dance: to poems, to music but now I would like to no longer dance to anything but the rhythm of my soul.
”
”
Isadora Duncan
“
I’ll tell you what is convenient,” he said after a moment. “To sleep until noon and have someone bring you your breakfast on a tray. To cancel an appointment at the very last minute. To keep a carriage waiting at the door of one party, so that on a moment’s notice it can whisk you away to another. To sidestep marriage in your youth and put off having children altogether. These are the greatest of conveniences, Anushka—and at one time, I had them all. But in the end, it has been the inconveniences that have mattered to me most.
”
”
Amor Towles (A Gentleman in Moscow)
“
The principle here is that a new generation owes a measure of thanks to every member of the previous generation. Our elders planted fields and fought in wars; they advanced the arts and sciences, and generally made sacrifices on our behalf. So by their efforts, however humble, they have earned a measure of our gratitude and respect.
”
”
Amor Towles (A Gentleman in Moscow)
“
- Me asustas (...). Quien es capaz de amar con esa intensidad, puede odiar de la misma manera.
”
”
Ángeles Ibirika (Antes y después de odiarte)
“
A king fortifies himself with a castle,” observed the Count, “a gentleman with a desk.” As
”
”
Amor Towles (A Gentleman in Moscow)
“
I know that right choices by definition are the means by which life crystallizes loss.
”
”
Amor Towles (Rules of Civility)
“
A veces te aborrezco tanto, casi tanto como te quiero.
”
”
Jaime Sabines (Los amorosos: Cartas a Chepita)
“
Symptoms of Amor Deliria Nervosa
PHASE ONE:
-preoccupation; difficulty focusing
-dry mouth
-perspiration, sweaty palms
-fits of dizziness and disorientation
-reduced mental awareness; racing thoughts; impaired reasoning skills
PHASE TWO:
-periods of euphoria; hysterical laughter and heightened energy
-periods of despair; lethargy
-changes in appetite; rapid weight loss or weight gain
-fixation; loss of other interests
-compromised reasoning skills; distortion of reality
-disruption of sleep patterns; insomnia or constant fatigue
-obsessive thoughts and actions
-paranoia; insecurity
PHASE THREE (CRITICAL):
-difficulty breathing
-pain in the chest, throat or stomach
-complete breakdown of rational faculties; erratic behavior; violent thoughts and fantasies; hallucinations and delusions
PHASE FOUR (FATAL):
-emotional or physical paralysis (partial or total)
-death
If you fear that you or someone you know may have contracted deliria, please call the emergency line toll-free at 1-800-PREVENT to discuss immediate intake and treatment.
”
”
Lauren Oliver (Delirium (Delirium, #1))
“
If you are ever in doubt, just remember that unlike adults, children want to be happy. So they still have the ability to take the greatest pleasure in the simplest things.” By
”
”
Amor Towles (A Gentleman in Moscow)
“
For kindness begins where necessity ends.
”
”
Amor Towles (The Lincoln Highway)
“
She was one of those people who was born for the greatness of a single love, for exaggerated hatred, for apocalyptic vengance, and for the most sublime forms of heroism but she was unable to shape her fate to the dimensions of her amorous vocation, so it was lived out as something flat and gray trapped between her mother's sickroom walls, wretched tenements, and the tortured confessions with which this large, opulent, hot-blooded woman made for maternity, abundance, action, and ardor- was consuming herself.
”
”
Isabel Allende (The House of the Spirits)
“
Everyone dreams of finding their soulmate. It's a universal quest. All over the world millions of people are looking for their true love, their amore thier ame soeur, that one special person with whom they will spend the rest of their life.
And I'm no different.
Except it doesn't happen for everyone. Some people spend their whole life looking and never find that person. It's the luck of the draw.
If, by some miracle, you're lucky enough to meet the ONE, whatever you do, don't let them go. Because you don't get another shot at it. Soulmates aren't like buses there's not going to be another one along in a minute. That's why they're called, "THE ONE".
”
”
Alexandra Potter (You're The One That I Don't Want)
“
Alexander Rostov was neither scientist nor sage; but at the age of sixty-four he was wise enough to know that life does not proceed by leaps and bounds. It unfolds. At any given moment, it is the manifestation of a thousand transitions. Our faculties wax and wane, our experiences accumulate and our opinions evolve--if not glacially, then at least gradually. Such that the events of an average day are as likely to transform who we are as a pinch of pepper is to transform a stew.
”
”
Amor Towles (A Gentleman in Moscow)
“
You see the first thing we love is a scene. For love at first sight requires the very sign of its suddenness; and of all things, it is the scene which seems to be seen best for the first time: a curtain parts and what had not yet ever been seen is devoured by the eyes: the scene consecrates the object I am going to love. The context is the constellation of elements, harmoniously arranged that encompass the experience of the amorous subject...
Love at first sight is always spoken in the past tense. The scene is perfectly adapted to this temporal phenomenon: distinct, abrupt, framed, it is already a memory (the nature of a photograph is not to represent but to memorialize)... this scene has all the magnificence of an accident: I cannot get over having had this good fortune: to meet what matches my desire.
The gesture of the amorous embrace seems to fulfill, for a time, the subject's dream of total union with the loved being: The longing for consummation with the other... In this moment, everything is suspended: time, law, prohibition: nothing is exhausted, nothing is wanted: all desires are abolished, for they seem definitively fulfilled... A moment of affirmation; for a certain time, though a finite one, a deranged interval, something has been successful: I have been fulfilled (all my desires abolished by the plenitude of their satisfaction).
”
”
Roland Barthes (A Lover's Discourse: Fragments)
“
Pero el amor, esa palabra... Moralista Horacio, temeroso de pasiones sin una razón de aguas hondas, desconcertado y arisco en la ciudad donde el amor se llama con todos los nombres de todas las calles, de todas las casas, de todos los pisos, de todas las habitaciones, de todas las camas, de todos los sueños, de todos los olvidos o los recuerdos. Amor mío, no te quiero por vos ni por mí ni por los dos juntos, no te quiero porque la sangre me llame a quererte, te quiero porque no sos mía, porque estás del otro lado, ahí donde me invitás a saltar y no puedo dar el salto, porque en lo más profundo de la posesión no estás en mí, no te alcanzo, no paso de tu cuerpo, de tu risa, hay horas en que me atormenta que me ames (cómo te gusta usar el verbo amar, con qué cursilería lo vas dejando caer sobre los platos y las sábanas y los autobuses), me atormenta tu amor que no me sirve de puente porque un puente no se sostiene de un solo lado...
”
”
Julio Cortázar
“
Either way, he figured a cup of coffee would hit the spot. For what is more versatile? As at home in tin as it is in Limoges, coffee can energize the industrious at dawn, calm the reflective at noon, or raise the spirits of the beleagured in the middle of the night.
”
”
Amor Towles (A Gentleman in Moscow)
“
Amor mío, no te quiero por vos ni por mí ni por los dos juntos, no te quiero porque la sangre me llame a quererte, te quiero porque no sos mía, porque estás del otro lado, ahí donde me invitás a saltar y no puedo dar el salto, porque en lo más profundo de la posesión no estás en mí, no te alcanzo, no paso de tu cuerpo, de tu risa, hay horas en que me atormenta que me ames (cómo te gusta usar el verbo amar, con qué cursilería lo vas dejando caer sobre los platos y las sábanas y los autobuses), me atormenta tu amor que no me sirve de puente porque un puente no se sostiene de un solo lado.
”
”
Julio Cortázar
“
Whatever setbacks he had faced in his life, he said, however daunting or dispiriting the unfolding of events, he always knew that he would make it through, as long as when he woke in the morning he was looking forward to his first cup of coffee. Only decades later would I realize that he had been giving me a piece of advice.
”
”
Amor Towles (Rules of Civility)
“
Right from the first, I could see a calmness in you - that sort of inner tranquility that they write about in books, but that almost no one seems to possess. I was wondering to myself: How does she do that? And I figured it could only come from having no regrets - from having made choices with .... such poise and purpose.
”
”
Amor Towles (Rules of Civility)
“
For I am—or I was—one of those people who pride themselves in on their willpower, on their ability to make a decision and carry it through. This virtue, like most virtues, is ambiguity itself. People who believe that they are strong-willed and the masters of their destiny can only continue to believe this by becoming specialists in self-deception. Their decisions are not really decisions at all—a real decision makes one humble, one knows that it is at the mercy of more things than can be named—but elaborate systems of evasion, of illusion, designed to make themselves and the world appear to be what they and the world are not. This is certainly what my decision, made so long ago in Joey’s bed, came to. I had decided to allow no room in the universe for something which shamed and frightened me. I succeeded very well—by not looking at the universe, by not looking at myself, by remaining, in effect, in constant motion.
”
”
James Baldwin (Giovanni’s Room)
“
I believe you did not have a happy life.
I believe you were cheated.
I believe your best friends were loneliness and misery.
I believe your busiest enemies were anger and depression.
I believe joy was a game you could never play without stumbling.
I believe comfort, though you craved it, was forever a stranger.
I believe music had to be melancholy or not at all.
I believe no trinket, no precious metal, shone so bright as your bitterness.
I believe you lay down at last in your coffin none the wiser and unassuaged.
Oh, cold and dreamless under the wild, amoral, reckless, peaceful flowers of the hillsides.
”
”
Mary Oliver
“
For his part, the Count had opted for the life of the purposefully unrushed. Not only was he disinclined to race toward some appointed hour - disdaining even to wear a watch - he took the greatest satisfaction when assuring a friend that a worldly matter could wait in favor of a leisurely lunch or stroll along the embankment. After all, did not wine improve with age? Was it not the passage of years that gave a piece of furniture its delightful patina? When all was said and done, the endeavors that most modern men saw as urgent (such as appointments with bankers and the catching of trains), probably could have waited, while those they deemed frivolous (such as cups of tea and friendly chats) had deserved their immediate attention.
”
”
Amor Towles (A Gentleman in Moscow)
“
Love casts out fear; but conversely fear casts out love. And not only love. Fear also casts out intelligence, casts out goodness, casts out all thought of beauty and truth. What remains in the bum or studiedly jocular desperation of one who is aware of the obscene Presence in the corner of the room and knows that the door is locked, that there aren’t any windows. And now the thing bears down on him. He feels a hand on his sleeve, smells a stinking breath, as the executioner’s assistant leans almost amorously toward him. “Your turn next, brother. Kindly step this way.” And in an instant his quiet terror is transmuted into a frenzy as violent as it is futile. There is no longer a man among his fellow men, no longer a rational being speaking articulately to other rational beings; there is only a lacerated animal, screaming and struggling in the trap. For in the end fear casts out even a man’s humanity. And fear, my good friends, fear is the very basis and foundation of modern life. Fear of the much touted technology which, while it raises out standard of living, increases the probability of our violently dying. Fear of the science which takes away the one hand even more than what it so profusely gives with the other. Fear of the demonstrably fatal institutions for while, in our suicidal loyalty, we are ready to kill and die. Fear of the Great Men whom we have raised, and by popular acclaim, to a power which they use, inevitably, to murder and enslave us. Fear of the war we don’t want yet do everything we can to bring about.
”
”
Aldous Huxley (Ape and Essence)
“
¿Ha estado alguna vez enamorado? Horrible, ¿no? Te hace tan vulnerable. Te abre el pecho y el corazón y eso significa que alguien puede meterse dentro de ti y revolver todo. Construyes todas estas defensas, todo fuerte y armadura, para que nada pueda hacerte daño y entonces, llega esta estúpida persona, no diferente de cualquier otra estúpida persona, y se mete en tu estúpida vida… Le das un pedazo de ti, que no te pidió. Hace algo tonto algún día, como besarte o sonreírte y es entonces cuando tu vida ya no te pertenece nunca más. El amor toma rehenes. Llega hasta lo más profundo dentro de ti. Te va carcomiendo y te deja llorando en la oscuridad; una frase tan simple como “quizá deberíamos ser sólo amigos” se convierte en una astilla de vidrio que se te va hundiendo en el corazón. Duele. No sólo en la imaginación. No sólo en la mente. Es un alma herida, un verdadero dolor que se te mete dentro y te rasga en pedazos. Odio el amor.
”
”
Neil Gaiman
“
...the Confederacy of the Humbled is a close-knit brotherhood whose members travel with no outward markings, but who know each other at a glance. For having fallen suddenly from grace, those in the Confederacy share a certain perspective. Knowing beauty, influence, fame, and privilege to be borrowed rather than bestowed, they are not easily impressed. They are not quick to envy or take offense. They certainly do not scour the papers in search of their own names. They remain committed to living among their peers, but they greet adulation with caution, ambition with sympathy, and condescension with an inward smile.
”
”
Amor Towles (A Gentleman in Moscow)
“
¡Libros! ¡Libros! Hace aquí una palabra mágica que equivale a decir: "amor, amor", y que debían los pueblos pedir como piden pan o como anhelan la lluvia para sus sementeras. Cuando el insigne escritor ruso Fedor Dostoyevsky, padre de la revolución rusa mucho más que Lenin estaba prisionero en la Siberia, alejado del mundo, entre cuatro paredes y cercado por desoladas llanuras de nieve infinita; y pedía socorro en carta a su lejana familia, sólo decía: "¡Enviadme libros, libros, muchos libros para que mi alma no muera!". Tenía frío y no pedía fuego, tenía terrible sed y no pedía agua
pedía libros, es decir, horizontes, es decir, escaleras para subir la cumbre del espíritu y del corazón. Porque la agonía física, biológica, natural, de un cuerpo por hambre, sed o frío, dura poco, muy poco, pero la agonía del alma insatisfecha dura toda la vida.
Ya ha dicho el gran Menéndez Pidal, uno de los sabios más verdaderos de Europa, que el lema de la República debe ser: "Cultura". Cultura porque sólo a través de ella se puede resolver los problemas en que hoy se debate el pueblo lleno de fe, pero falto de luz.
Medio pan e un libro. Locución de Federico García Lorca al pueblo de Fuente de Vaqueros (Granada)
”
”
Federico García Lorca
“
Espero curarme de ti en unos días. Debo dejar de fumarte, de beberte, de pensarte. Es posible. Siguiendo las prescripciones de la moral en turno. Me receto tiempo, abstinencia, soledad.
¿Te parece bien que te quiera nada más una semana? No es mucho, ni es poco, es bastante. En una semana se puede reunir todas las palabras de amor que se han pronunciado sobre la tierra y se les puede prender fuego. Te voy a calentar con esa hoguera del amor quemado. Y también el silencio. Porque las mejores palabras del amor están entre dos gentes que no se dicen nada.
Hay que quemar también ese otro lenguaje lateral y subversivo del que ama. (Tú sabes cómo te digo que te quiero cuando digo: «qué calor hace», «dame agua», «¿sabes manejar?», «se hizo de noche»... Entre las gentes, a un lado de tus gentes y las mías, te he dicho «ya es tarde», y tú sabías que decía «te quiero»).
Una semana más para reunir todo el amor del tiempo. Para dártelo. Para que hagas con él lo que quieras: guardarlo, acariciarlo, tirarlo a la basura. No sirve, es cierto. Sólo quiero una semana para entender las cosas. Porque esto es muy parecido a estar saliendo de un manicomio para entrar a un panteón.
”
”
Jaime Sabines (Recuento De Poemas, 1950-93 (Spanish Edition))
“
APRENDIENDO
Después de un tiempo, uno aprende la sutil diferencia entre sostener una mano y encadenar un alma, y uno aprende que el amor no significa acostarse y una compañía no significa seguridad, y uno empieza a aprender...
Que los besos no son contratos y los regalos no son promesas, y uno empieza a aceptar sus derrotas con la cabeza alta y los ojos abiertos, y uno aprende a construir todos sus caminos en el hoy, porque el terreno de mañana es demasiado inseguro para planes...y los futuros tienen una forma de caerse en la mitad.
Y después de un tiempo uno aprende que si es demasiado, hasta el calor del sol quema. Así que uno planta su propio jardín y decora su propia alma, en lugar de esperar a que alguien le traiga flores. Y uno aprende que realmente puede aguantar, que uno realmente es fuerte, que uno realmente vale, y uno aprende y aprende... y con cada día uno aprende. Con el tiempo aprendes que estar con alguien porque te ofrece un buen futuro, significa que tarde o temprano querrás volver a tu pasado.
Con el tiempo comprendes que sólo quien es capaz de amarte con tus defectos, sin pretender cambiarte, puede brindarte toda la felicidad que deseas. Con el tiempo te das cuenta de que si estás al lado de esa persona sólo por acompañar tu soledad, irremediablemente acabarás no deseando volver a verla. Con el tiempo entiendes que los verdaderos amigos son contados, y que el que no lucha por ellos tarde o temprano se verá rodeado sólo de amistades falsas.
Con el tiempo aprendes que las palabras dichas en un momento de ira pueden seguir lastimando a quien heriste, durante toda la vida. Con el tiempo aprendes que disculpar cualquiera lo hace, pero perdonar es sólo de almas grandes. Con el tiempo comprendes que si has herido a un amigo duramente, muy probablemente la amistad jamás volverá a ser igual. Con el tiempo te das cuenta que aunque seas feliz con tus amigos, algún día llorarás por aquellos! que dejaste ir. Con el tiempo te das cuenta de que cada experiencia vivida con cada persona es irrepetible.
Con el tiempo te das cuenta de que el que humilla o desprecia a un ser humano, tarde o temprano sufrirá las mismas humillaciones o desprecios multiplicados al cuadrado. Con el tiempo aprendes a construir todos tus caminos en el hoy, porque el terreno del mañana es demasiado incierto para hacer planes. Con el tiempo comprendes que apresurar las cosas o forzarlas a que pasen ocasionará que al final no sean como esperabas. Con el tiempo te das cuenta de que en realidad lo mejor no era el futuro, sino el momento que estabas viviendo justo en ese instante.
Con el tiempo verás que aunque seas feliz con los que están a tu lado,añorarás terriblemente a los que ayer estaban contigo y ahora se han marchado. Con el tiempo aprenderás que intentar perdonar o pedir perdón, decir que amas, decir que extrañas, decir que necesitas, decir que quieres ser amigo, ante una tumba, ya no tiene ningún sentido. Pero desafortunadamente, solo con el tiempo...
”
”
Jorge Luis Borges
“
Y si, digo que me parecería de lo más bonito del mundo tomarnos de la mano y besarnos frente a los demás. Y comer fresas con crema de tu boca o de tus piernas en mi casa de campo mientras preparo chocolate caliente y tu enciendes la calefacción. Y estar cada noche en la azotea viendo constelaciones mientras te hago dibujos en la espalda de las mismas. Y decirte que me encantaría pasar horas dando vueltas en la cama mirandote y jugando contigo a que somos gatos que no quieren dormirse y quieren jugar hasta que se vaya la luna. Y quisiera despertar todos los días viendote despertar. Hacerte el desayuno, el amor. Compartirte mi vida. Decir que no hay peor ciego que el que no te quiera ver, y que la verdad el mundo sería bastante aburrido sin tu existencia. Y que me ha gustado un montón haberte encontrado. Y que sólo me sentiría perdido si te suelto de la cintura cuando bailemos. Que sólo en tus labios es que puedo calmar mi sed de verdad, y en tus ojos es que puedo disfrutar de un próspero amanecer. Que con nuestros cuerpos rozados uno al otro mi corazón da latidos de fuego artificial. Que la vida sin ti es un desperdicio, y que no me importa el tiempo que tenga que pasar esperandote por que te vistas a la hora de salir. Que no me importaría llegar tarde al trabajo si cada mañana despertamos, te hago el café comemos y hacemos el amor antes de despedirnos. Que sonreír es mucho más bonito cuando lo hago porque lo haces tú. Que me encantas con pijama, sin pijama, con lo que sea. Que eres tan bella que no dejas que nadie más para mí lo sea. Corretear por la cocina desnudos por estar jugando a las escondidas, aparecerme en la ducha cuando tu lo estás, abrazarte y besarte haciendote saber que eres la mejor persona del mundo y que ser feliz es sinónimo de estar contigo.
Y besar tu cuello y acariciar tu vientre mientras digo que soy capaz de darle la vuelta al mundo para abrazarte por la espalda. Así te quedaría claro que eres amada por mí.
”
”
J. Porcupine (La vuelta al mundo para abrazarte por la espalda)
“
I used to think Romeo and Juliet was the greatest love story ever written. But now that I’m middle-aged, I know better. Oh, Romeo certainly thinks he loves his Juliet. Driven by hormones, he unquestionably lusts for her. But if he loves her, it’s a shallow love. You want proof?” Cagney didn’t wait for Dr. Victor to say yay or nay.
“Soon after meeting her for the first time, he realizes he forgot to ask her for her name. Can true love be founded upon such shallow acquaintance? I don’t think so. And at the end, when he thinks she’s dead, he finds no comfort in living out the remainder of his life within the paradigm of his love, at least keeping alive the memory of what they had briefly shared, even if it was no more than illusion, or more accurately, hormonal.
“Those of us watching events unfold from the darkness know she merely lies in slumber. But does he seek the reason for her life-like appearance? No. Instead he accuses Death of amorousness, convinced that the ‘lean abhorred monster’ endeavors to keep Juliet in her present state, her cheeks flushed, so that she might cater to his own dissolute desires. But does Romeo hold her in his arms one last time and feel the warmth of her blood still coursing through her veins? Does he pinch her to see if she might awaken? Hold a mirror to her nose to see if her breath fogs it? Once, twice, three times a ‘no.’”
Cagney sighed, listened to the leather creak as he shifted his weight in his chair.
“No,” he repeated. “His alleged love is so superficial and selfish that he seeks to escape the pain of loss by taking his own life. That’s not love, but obsessive infatuation. Had they wed—Juliet bearing many children, bonding, growing together, the masks of the star-struck teens they once were long ago cast away, basking in the comforting campfire of a love born of a lifetime together, not devoured by the raging forest fire of youth that consumes everything and leaves behind nothing—and she died of natural causes, would Romeo have been so moved to take his own life, or would he have grieved properly, for her loss and not just his own?
”
”
J. Conrad Guest (The Cobb Legacy)