Enrique Quotes

Nothing but a symbol? People die for symbols. People have hope because of symbols. They're not just lines. They're histories, cultures, traditions, given shape.

When something can be read without effort, great effort has gone into its writing.

Enrique had brought her a cookie and made her laugh, and it felt like sitting beside a fire in one's own home, knowing exactly where everything was and who would come to the door.

Enrique, who has always dreamed about what magic might feel like, thought he had found it then: myths and palimpsests, starlight sugaring the air, and the way hope feels painful when shared equally among friends.

An advanced city is not a place where the poor move about in cars, rather it’s where even the rich use public transportation

Can we be happy for Goliath from behind a sheet of glass and a net and a fence? Maybe a ring of fire for good measure?" asked Enrique

Something that can pull men apart-" "Money?" asked Enrique. "Love!" said Hypnos. "Magnets," said Zofia. Laila, Enrique, and Hypnos turned to stare at her. "Powerful magnets," Zofia amended.

El "etcétera" es el descanso de los sabios y la excusa de los ignorantes.

Lo que hace soportable la vida es la idea de que podemos elegir cuándo escapar.

Viajar, perder ciudades, perderlos todos.

Not all who are lost are lost forever.

Don't be afraid to grow up, Peter. It's only a trap if you forget how to fly.

La literatura me ha permitido siempre comprender la vida. Pero precisamente por eso me deja fuera de ella.

See how the symbols stretch across all three shields? They represent a god." Hypnos frowned. "There's a God of lions and knives and wineglasses? That seems incredibly specific." "This god is Shezmu," said Enrique, rolling his eyes. "He's seldom depicted, perhaps because he's at such odds with himself. On the other hand, he's the lord of perfumes and gracious oils, often considered something of a celebration deity." "My kind of god," said Hypnos. "He is also the god of slaughter, blood and dismemberment." "I amend my original statement," said Hypnos.

It wasn't his intellect that made him unwanted. It was his face. - Enrique

You’re a lot braver than most of the people outside,” said Enrique. “None of them could build a bomb with their eyes closed and wander into a metal monster and still want to name it ‘David.’ Trust in yourself, Phoenix.

la vida es corta pero el día largo

When he [Enrique] turned his head, he saw Zofia and Raslan on the left side of his bed, while Laila and Severin stood near the foot. "Bravery is physically exhausting," he managed. "You're awake!"cried Laila, hugging him. "You're alive." "And your hair remains exceptional," said Ruslan kindly.

Enrique used to feel a twinge of shame when it came to his feelings … He used to pray that when it came to attraction, his body would just choose between men and women, and not both. It was his second-oldest brother, bound for priesthood, who told him that God made no mistakes in crafting their hearts. Enrique still hadn’t quite parsed out his own relationship to faith, but what his brother said had made him stop hating himself. It made him stop turning from what lay inside him and embrace it.

No le doy ningún valor a mi vida, sólo a las vidas ajenas, y pese a ello amo la vida, pero la amo porque espero que me dé alguna ocasión para echarla decorosamente por la borda.

La vida está llena de sorpresas y de protozoos del paludismo.

Uh, Alex,” Enrique laughs. “There’s a trick-or-treater here to see you.

México no es el país de Andrés Manuel López Obrador o Enrique Peña Nieto o Carlos Slim o Emilio Azcárraga o Carlos Romero Deschamps o Elba Esther Gordillo o Felipe Calderón. No es el país de los diputados o los gobernadores o los burócratas o los líderes sindicales o los monopolistas. Es el país de uno. El país nuestro. Ahora y siempre.

I figure when I die, I can't take anything with me. So why not give?

…nostalgia is, by definition, the least authentic of all feelings.

Necesito una pequeña buhardilla para dedicarme a escribir y soñar, no un coche impecable que me de prestigio y status entre los pendejos de clase media.

Viajar es imprescindible y la sed de viaje, un síntoma neto de inteligencia.

Recuérdalo, Enrique: cuando encuentres a un anciano, a una mujer con su criatura en brazos, a uno que anda con muletas,a un hombre con su carga a cuestas, a una familia vestida de luto, cédeles el paso con respeto; debemos tener atenciones especiales con la vejez, la miseria, el amor maternal, la enfermedad, la fatiga y la muerte.

Estamos solos, cada uno consigo mismo y con su muerte propia y su vida solitaria y desastrosa, estamos muy solos todos. Pero te diré algo que quizás te consuele. La soledad es el afrodisíaco del espíritu, como la conversación lo es de la inteligencia.

Y me sentí un transeúnte más que un día sería un transeúnte menos

After all, what are we, what is any one of us, if not a combination, particular and exact, of what we have done, what we have read, and what we have imagined?

Where's the cake?

Wait. I was bait?” demanded Enrique. “You’re flattered.

I think I have the right to be able to see myself differently from how others see me, to see myself however I want and not to be forced to be this person other people have decided I am.

I don't like ferocious irony but rather the kind that vacillates between disappointment and hope. Okay?

Memories hold you back; their weight crushes your spirit.

La vida es demasiado breve como para vivir el número suficiente de experiencas, es necesario robarlas.

Philosophical intelligence is never so truthful, pure, and precise as when it starts from oppression and does not have any privileges to defend, because it has none at all.

Enrique rolled his eyes. “Most women kill to be alone with me.” “I have learned that something does not have to be animate in order to use the word ‘kill,’” said Zofia. “Like how some people say ‘kill time.’ Perhaps these women you are referencing are killing their expectations?

El amor es una goma elástica que los humanos, a fuerza de tirar, consiguen que se alargue. Pero, al cabo, uno de los que tiraban se cansa y suelta su extremo y la goma le da un porrazo en las narices al que todavía seguía tirando…

Enrique Peñalosa, the former mayor of Bogotá, Colombia, sees things in a much simpler light: “God made us walking animals—pedestrians. As a fish needs to swim, a bird to fly, a deer to run, we need to walk, not in order to survive, but to be happy.”38 That thought is beautiful, perfectly obvious,

Phoenix . . ." "Hmm?" "You are not actually thinking of hiding a large explosive near our faces, are you?" asked Enrique. "No," said Zofia. "Good-" "It's a very tiny explosive. Hardly larger than six centimeters." "No," said Hypnos and Enrique at the same time. Laila took that as her cue to leave.

Los li­bros que uno ama apasionadamente producen la sensa­ción, cuando los abres por primera vez, de que siempre estuvieron ahí: aparecen en ellos lugares en los que no has estado, cosas que uno antes nunca ha visto ni oído, pero el acople de la memoria personal con esos lugares o cosas es tan rotundo que de algún modo acabas pen­sando que has estado allí.

El hombre que se ríe de todo es que todo lo desprecia. La mujer que se ríe de todo es que sabe que tiene una dentadura bonita

Escrever é corrigir a vida

...el mejor de la vida es viajar y perder las teorías, perderlas todas.

He begins collecting books as well as passions, he knows that the hunt for books, like sexual pursuit, enriches the geography of pleasure.

Am I … am I a genius?” asked Hypnos. Without waiting for anyone to answer, he leapt from his seat and bowed. Enrique clapped indulgently, and Hypnos beamed at him.

No, but you really must,” said Enrique, looking exceptionally wounded. “I can’t feed myself, Laila. I’ll perish left to my own devices. Life is cruel, and often without cake.

pushing aside the vodka bottle and reaching for the last remaining cake. Laila thought for sure Enrique would jolt awake, somehow sensing the last cake would be taken from him,

Enrique didn’t want a forced love. He wanted a love like a light, a presence that drove out the shadows and recast the world into something warm.

What's the deal with the bossman?" Urian asked him. Alexion shrugged. "I don't know. He came in last night with a book, went to his room to read, I suppose, and then he came out here this morning and has been playing . . . those songs ever since." Those songs were ballads, which Acheron never played. God-smack, Sex Pistols, TSOL, Judas Priest, but not . . . "Is that . . ." Urian physically cringed before he spat out the name, "Julio Iglesias?" "Enrique." Urian grimaced in horror. "I didn't even know he knew any mellow shit. Dear gods . . .is he ill?" "I don't know. In nine thousand years, I've never seen him like this before." Urian shuddered. "I'm beginning to get scared. This has to be a sign of the Apocalypse. If he breaks out into Air Supply, I say we sneeak up on him, drag him outside and beat the holy shit out of him.

Pretty’ is a stretch. Let’s call you ‘striking.’ Or ‘impossible to look away from.’” “Oooh. Like the sun?” “I was thinking more along the lines of a train wreck.” Enrique let out a wounded hmpf.

Hypnos was beautiful at a distance. Up close, he was just plain staggering. Enrique stumbled to his feet, hoping the other boy hadn’t noticed. When he looked up, Hypnos’s eyes looked darker. The pupils blown out, as if he was trying to take in all of him too. “Had I known what pretty company you keep, I might have met with you sooner, Séverin,” said Hypnos, not taking his eyes off Enrique.

Hypnos deflated. “That tells us nothing.” “We also know that Roux-Joubert wears a honeybee pin,” said Enrique. “So? Today I’m wearing underwear. It’s hardly monumental.” Zofia frowned. “Why did you specify today—

In life, we need to go through a naked tree season in order to turn nothingness into meaning.

El pasado, decía Proust, no sólo es fugaz, es que no se mueve de sitio. Con París pasa lo mismo, jamás ha salido de viaje. Y encima es interminable, no se acaba nunca.

En una descripción bien hecha, aunque sea obscena, hay algo moral: la voluntad de decir la verdad. Cuando se usa el lenguaje para simplemente obtener un efecto, para no ir más allá de lo que nos está permitido, se incurre paradójicamente en un acto inmoral.

When she got to the end of the hall, Zofia stopped short. Enrique and Hypnos had not moved from their spot. Their eyes were locked on each other, heads bent low in conversation and then—just as suddenly—not in conversation.

Sahara’s jaw set in a stubborn line familiar to him from her childhood. “You may carry his genes,” she said, “but you are not and never will be Enrique’s son.” A passionate negation that vibrated with cold fury. “If you were, you wouldn’t find pleasure in touching me with care, only in causing me pain.” Pressing her fingers to his lips, she shook her head. “You’re Kaleb. That is your identity.

Citar es respirar literatura para no ahogarse entre los tópicos castizos y ocurrentes que le vienen a uno a la pluma cuando se empeña en esa vulgaridad suprema de «no deberle nada a nadie». Y es que, en el fondo, quien no cita no hace más que repetir pero sin saberlo ni elegirlo.

...nunca me retracté de esta y de otras mentiras porque ella se mostraba encantada con mis invenciones, y a mí me ocurría otro tanto con las suyas, y es que aquel acuerdo tácito nos interesaba mucho a los dos porque nos permitía huir de nosotros mismos y nos proporcionaba esa serenidad que se desprende de una unión entre dos seres de ficción, una serenidad ficticia que hasta entonces no habíamos nunca conocido, y es que nada, pensaba yo, tranquiliza tanto como una máscara.

Si un hombre no conoce nunca la amistad femenina se expone a una orfandad espiritual atroz: la de los chingones invulnerables que pueden ser quizá exitosos donjuanes, pero jamás conocen el lado suave y luminoso del universo.

Y en seguida, estornudé. -¿Tienes frío? -¡No! Estornudo por darme importancia.

Never give up on your dreams

Todo el mundo aconseja, no por bondad y desprendimiento, sino porque el consejo lleva implícita la inferioridad del aconsejado.

Die Welt ist schrecklich langweilig, oder, was dasselbe ist, was an ihr interessant sein könnte, ist es nicht, solange es nicht von einem guten Schriftsteller erzählt wird.

Ahora sí que tú y yo estamos más lejos uno del otro que dos estrellas de diferentes galaxias.

La Medicina es el arte de acompañar con palabras griegas al sepulcro.

Como ella, Germán sólo leía por placer, pero quisiera o no, cada nuevo libro le enseñaba algo desconocido sobre sí mismo.

- Estou apaixonado porque vocês me falaram do amor. Nunca me teria apaixonado se não me fizessem interessar pelo tema." - Enrique Vila-Matas, Filhos sem Filhos

No fim de contas, o que somos, o que é cada um de nós senão uma combinatória, diferente e única, de experiência, de leituras, de imaginações?" - Enrique Vila-Matas, Filhos sem Filhos

Busco el recogimiento, porque suele ser más interesante la literatura que la vida. No sé si es paradójico, pero me gusta muchísimo la vida porque, digan lo que digan, se parece a una gran novela.

He believes that if talent is demanded of a literary publisher or a writer, it must also be demanded of a reader. Because we mustn’t deceive ourselves: on the journey of reading we often travel through difficult terrains that demand a capacity for intelligent emotion, a desire to understand the other, and to approach a language distinct from the one of our daily tyrannies… Writers fail readers, but it also happens the other way around and readers fail writers when all they ask of them is confirmation that the world is how they see it.

Envejecer es un desastre. Lo lógico sería que todos los que ven declinar sus vidas gritaran de espanto, no se resignaran a un futuro de mandíbula colgando y babeo irremediable, y aún menos a ese brutal despedazarse que es la muerte, porque morir es rasgarse en mil pedazos que empiezan a desperdigarse vertiginosamente para siempre, sin testigos.

Cuando leo algo que entiendo perfectamente, lo abandono desilusionado. No me gustan los relatos con historias comprensibles. Porque entender puede ser una condena. Y no entender, la puerta que se abre.

Horroriza el nivel de ignorancia de este país y, sobre todo, de satisfacción con esa ignorancia. Es un país con mucha inquina y mucha mala leche, de escasa —por no decir nula— categoría moral. Y a mí me parece que si eres mínimamente culto, estás perdido.

One more question. Enrique said when your wife left you, you took it well. Did you ever go after her? Try to convince her to stay?” “No.” “Why not?” “I don’t know. I was young, I was over it. She left me for my cousin.” He shrugs. “I just didn’t care enough to chase her.” “But you chased me.” “I did.” “And you’d keep chasing me? If I say no to this? If I turned you away?” “Probably.” I stare at him. “Why?” “Because you’re mine.

I am told that César Aira writes two books a year, at least, some of which are published by a little Argentinean company named Beatriz Viterbo, after the character in Borges's story "The Aleph." The books of his that I have been able to find were published by Mondadori and and Tusquets Argentina. It's frustrating, because once you've started reading Aira, you don't want to stop. His novels seem to put the theories of Gombrowicz into practice, except, and the difference is fundamental, that Gombrowicz was the abbot of a luxurious imaginary monastery, while Aira is a nun or novice among the Discalced Carmelites of the Word. Sometimes he is reminiscent of Roussel (Roussel on his knees in a bath red with blood), but the only living writer to whom he can be compared is Barcelona's Enrique Vila-Matas. Aira is an eccentric, but he is also one of the three or four best writers working in Spanish today.

- Siempre he soñado con besar a la mujer amada a la luz de la luna -prosigió él con la imbecilidad astronómica propia de tantos enamorados

No hay distancia más grande que el espacio entre dos mentes.

Después de todo, la vida es un ameno y grave recorrido por los más diversos funerales.

Palabras superficiales: el amor y el marron glacé son una misma cosa: esplendor por fuera; y por dentro, una castaña helada.

¿Será que lo doméstico -ese veneno que acaba con las pasiones y que también llamamos cotidianidad- lo arruina todo? [...] ¿Es el genio, como insisten algunos, una persona insoportablemente normal en la vida cotidiana? ¿Se puede ser genial todo el rato?

Cada uno de nosotros es, sucesivamente, no uno, sino muchos. Y estas personalidades sucesivas, que emergen las unas de las otras, suelen ofrecer entre si los mas raros y asombrosos contrastes.

Por lo demás, el hecho de que una dama de la aristocracia inglesa se venga a nuestro domicilio y se desnude por completo para hablar con nosotros ocurre todos los días y ya no le extraña a nadie.

Lo más terrible de todo es saber en que consiste esta miserable vida y, pese a todo, y con la mayor alevosía, tener hijos. Se necesita mucho cinismo, valor y crueldad para una cosa de ese estilo.

The V-2’s directional system was notoriously erratic. In May 1947, a V-2 launched from White Sands Proving Ground headed south instead of north, missing downtown Juarez, Mexico, by 3 miles. The Mexican government’s response to the American bombing was admirably laid back. General Enrique Diaz Gonzales and Consul General Raul Michel met with United States officials, who issued apologies and an invitation to come to “the next rocket shoot” at White Sands. The Mexican citizenry was similarly nonchalant. “Bomb Blast Fails to Halt Spring Fiesta,” said the El Paso Times headline, noting that “many thought the explosion was a cannon fired for the opening of the fiesta.

Charles’s old ally Don Enrique, King of Castile, also died before taking sides, and his son, Juan I, though heavily pressed by Charles V to support Clement, preferred to maintain “neutrality,” saying that, while faithful to the French alliance, he could not go against the conscience of his subjects. Common people, nobility, clerics, learned men, he wrote, were all Urbanist. “What government, O wise prince,” he pointedly inquired of Charles, “has ever succeeded in triumphing over public conscience supported by reason? What punishments are available to subjugate a free soul?

We don’t even survive in the memories of the living. Science has destroyed that myth. Whenever we remember something, what we’re doing is remembering the last time we remembered it; our memory doesn’t go back to the original notch, the first one was cut, but to the last one. Human memory is virtual, like that of a computer. When we open a file we’re not opening it as it was when we first created it, but as it was the last time we used it. It is called hypercathexis and is our brain’s most sophisticated recourse when it comes to confronting pain.

Un hombre que se enamora es siempre un imbécil elevado al cubo. Cuando se tratra de un individuo genial, ese individuo escribe La Divina Comedia (caso Dante Alighieri) y le amarga la vida para siempre a la humanidad. Y, por el contrario, cuando se trata de un hombre vulgar, ese hombre hace oposiciones a Hacienda, se casa en la Parroquia (caso Juan Sánchez) y se amarga la vida para siempre a sí mismo.

El Necronomicón es una guía hacia el mundo de los muertos, y su sola lectura puede tener graves consecuencias, como hacer perder el juicio.

Done!” said Hypnos, clapping his hands. “Is this what teamwork is like? How … hierarchical.” Hypnos winked at Laila. “Hello, lover.” “Ex-lover,” she said, a touch fondly. Hypnos reminded her of Enrique. If Enrique’s wits had been fed on champagne and bitter smoke for the better part of a decade. Séverin’s face darkened. A small muscle in his jaw twitched, as if he were chewing down an imaginary clove to calm his temper. He stalked forward, placing himself between Laila and Hypnos. “You and I should talk privately,” he said to Hypnos. “I’ll

Personas de gran exigencia intelectual y potentísima inteligencia son hoy plenamente conscientes de que su destino en la vida —explicar lo que han entendido y que los otros no comprenden o no quieren ver— no sirve para nada porque a los otros ni les incumbe ni lo comprenden ni lo quieren saber.

I was full of doubts, of course, not a particularly bad way to be, but I didn’t know that. Doubting so much made me suffer, but I could have saved myself the anxiety and simply doubted, without any problem. I was unaware that to doubt is to write. Marguerite Duras would say so in 1995, toward the end of her days: “I can say what I like, but I shall never know why people write and how it is people don’t write. In life, there comes a time, and I think it is total, that we cannot escape, where we doubt everything: that doubt is writing.

porque despues de cierta edad la vida es dura es dura y dolorosa, un reflejo de ilusiones de repente la soledad al fondo del abismo se ve con claridad cuando te preocupas por no caer ya el problema no es el caer sino el como salir....

Serena has spent her life fighting fiction the way good soldiers fight—intent on detecting its presence, harassing it, suppressing it—but I have to find a way to show her she’s mistaken her enemy, to explain to her that whoever suppresses fiction destroys life, and that everything disappears with it, all love, all desire. If the past is an invention, it’s not such a big deal. After all, the future’s an invention, and no one finds that hard to accept.

Cené con los cretinos, escritores funcionarios de mierda, muertos. Esa raza de escritores, imitadores de lo ya hecho y gente absolutamente falta de ambición literaria, aunque no de ambición económica, son una plaga más perniciosa incluso que la plaga de los directores editoriales que trabajan con entusiasmo contra lo literario. (...) Aquella reunión no tenía nada de simpática ni de exótica ni de original. Era en realidad un congreso literario más de los muchos que hay esparcidos por el mundo de la corrupción.

Todos los seres humanos, desde la más tierna infancia, vamos generando mecanismos de defensa frente a las agresiones del entorno. La vida es un regalo maravilloso, pero no es un camino de rosas. Seguramente sería demasiado aburrido si no tuviésemos que enfrentarnos a momentos duros, a varios reveses y a circunstancias adversas. Seguramente, también, si no fuera por esos instantes dolorosos seríamos incapaces de apreciar las situaciones extraordinarias y fascinantes, cargadas de alegría, que por suerte nos obsequia la existencia.

Como dice Blanchot, la esencia de la literatura nunca está ya aquí, siempre hay que encontrarla o inventarla de nuevo. Así vengo yo trabajando en estas notas, buscando e inventando, prescindiendo de que existen unas reglas de juego de la literatura. Vengo yo trabajando en estas notas de forma un tanto despreocupada o anárquica, de un modo que me recuerda a veces la respuesta que dio el gran torero Belmonte cuando, en una entrevista, le requirieron que hablara sobre su toreo. "¡Si no sé! -contestó-. Palabra que no sé. Yo no sé las reglas, ni creo en las reglas. Yo siento el toreo, y sin fijarme en las reglas lo ejecuto a mi modo." "Quien afirme a la literatura en sí misma, no afirma nada. Quien la busca, sólo busca lo que se escapa, quien la encuentra, sólo encuentra lo que está aquí o, cosa peor, más allá de la literatura. Por eso, finalmente, cada libro persigue la no-literatura como la esencia de lo que quiere y quisiera apasionadamente descubrir.