Metro 2034 Quotes

Hope is like blood. While it still flows through your veins, you’re alive. I want to hope.

No era un monstruo. Era un ser humano normal y corriente. Cruel, imbécil y rencoroso. Igual que todos los demás.

It was true, it was easy enough for an old man like him, with no children, to risk his moth-eaten skin, but the young man still had a long life ahead of him - too long to be concerned about immortality.

Auch wir selbst sind ja nicht das Urbild, nach dem alle folgenden Kopien erstellt werden, sondern nur eine Chimäre, jeweils zur Hälfte bestehend aus inneren und äußeren Merkmalen unserer Väter und Mütter, genauso wie jene ihrerseits aus den Hälften ihrer Eltern bestehen. Gibt es somit in uns gar nichts Einzigartiges, sondern nur eine endlose Mischung winziger Mosaiksteinchen, die unabhängig von uns existieren und sich zu Milliarden zufälliger Bilder zusammensetzen, welche ihrerseits keinen eigenen Wert besitzen und sofort wieder zerfallen?

Cuando un hombre hace llorar a una mujer y luego quiere consolarla, tiene que empezar por controlar sus propias emociones.

Peut-être qu’elle n’existe pas, répondit Homère en haussant les épaules. Ce n’est qu’un conte, après tout. Mais comment survivrions-nous sans contes? Homère, p. 52

Olyan volt mindez, mint a szülés. Moszkva olyan nőre hasonlított, aki már meghalt, de megkövülő méhében még élő gyermekekkel volt viselős. Akik meg akarnak születni, és csak sírnak odabent. De Moszkva nem engedett ki magából többé senkit. Összeszorította betonpináját, és megfojtotta bent minden gyermekét, akik kiszenvedtek és elcsöndesültek, anélkül, megszülettek volna. A cigijük elfogyott. Éjszaka volt.

This is a world without any tomorrow. There is no place in it for dreams, plans and hopes. Here instincts take priority over feelings, and the most powerful instinct of all is survival. Survival at any price.

You know, when one day’s like any other, they fly by so fast and it seems like the last one is really close already,’ Homer tried to explain. ‘You feel afraid of not getting anything finished. And every one of those days is full of a thousand little things to be done. Do one, take a break, and it’s time to start on the next one. You have no time or strength left for what’s really important. You think: never mind – I’ll start tomorrow. But tomorrow never comes, it’s always just one long, endless today.

Homer listened and suddenly he started to shiver. He didn’t believe his ears. Huskily, stumbling, the brigadier tried to search for the melody. He stopped, returned to the beginning and repeated it patiently until it was finally right. He sang it almost silently, like some kind of song to fall asleep to, a lullaby. It was Leonid’s nameless song.

Fear and terror are not the same thing at all. Fear spurs a man on to take action and be creative. Terror paralyses the body and blocks the flow of thought, it makes a man less human.

He was dreaming of immortalising everyone that life and fate brought him into contact with, but instead he had been appointed an absurd, bald, powerless angel of death. His wings had been clipped and he had been ringed, setting him a fixed term of thirty days, and that had galvanised him into action.

You mean beauty doesn’t exist without people?’ Sasha asked eventually, puzzled. ‘Probably not,’ he replied absentmindedly. ‘If there’s no one to see it . . . After all, animals aren’t capable, are they?’ ‘And if animals are different from people because they can’t see the difference between what’s beautiful and what’s ugly,’ Sasha pondered, ‘does that mean people can’t exist without beauty either?’ ‘Oh, yes they can,’ said the old man, shaking his head. ‘Lots of people don’t need it at all.

It occurred to her that these absent-minded glances with nothing jarring about them lubricated the gear wheels of the human bustling, like machine oil. If they took an interest in each other, the friction would be too great and the entire mechanism would be paralyzed.

But the science-fiction writers and the scientists had both started from the premise that humanity was rational and consistent. As if it didn’t consist of several billions of lazy, frivolous individuals who were easily distracted, but was some kind of beehive, endowed with collective reason and a unified will. As if, when it set about conquering space, it had really intended to take the task seriously and not abandon it halfway when the game got boring, turning its attention to electronics and then moving on to biotechnology, without ever achieving any really impressive results in anything. Except, perhaps, for nuclear physics.

Myślę, że kiedy oddychasz śmiercią, nikt nie dotknie twoich ust. Przestraszą się trupiego smrodu...

In some miraculous fashion, the only things that were preserved were those capable of capturing the human imagination, setting the heart beating faster and engaging people's minds and feelings. The gripping story of a great hero and his love could outlive the story of an entire civilization, infecting the human brain like a virus that was transmitted from fathers to children over hundreds of generations.

I sada joj je instikt govorio da treba da pronađe čvrst oslonac, uz koji bi se priljubila, zagrlila ga i uplela se oko njega. Ali ne zato da bi parazitirala crpeći sokove tuđeg tela, otimajući mu svetlost i toplotu, već zbog toga što je bez njega bila suviše meka, previše savitljiva, nemoćna da se uspravi, i sama bi zauvek bila osuđena da puzi po zemlji. Otac je učio Sašu da ne treba ni od koga da zavisi, i da ni na koga ne treba da se oslanja. A u stvari, osim njega, na njihovoj maloj postaji i nije imala na koga da se osloni, a on je bio svestan da neće živeti večno. Otac je želeo da ona izraste, ne u bršljan već u moćnu boriku, zaboravljajući da je to u suprotnosti sa ženskom prirodom. Preživela bi Saša bez njega. Preživela bi i bez Hantera. Ali joj je stapanje sa drugim bićem delovalo kao jedini dobar razlog za razmišljanje o budućnosti. Kada ga je na dresini u pokretu obgrlila rukama, učinilo joj se da je njen život dobio novi oslonac. Ona je odlično znala da je verovati drugima opasno, a da je zavisiti od njih - nedostojno, tako da je u svom pokušaju da sebe objasni Hanteru u stvari zgazila samu sebe. Saša je želela da dopre do njega, a on je smatrao da mu se ona lepi za čizme. Ostavljena bez oslonca i zgažena, nije imala nameru da tako ponižena nastavi potragu. On ju je prognao na površinu - to mu tako nekako dođe. Ako joj se nešto dogodi na površini, to će biti njegova krivica; ali on je isto tako u stanju i da to spreči.

Actuala lui relație cu Elena era plină de tandrețea specifică bătrâneții, dar se întâlniseră prea târziu...La vârsta lor oamenii se străduiesc să-și aline singurătatea, nu să-și potolească pasiunile.

Ни ученые, ни фантасты никогда не умели как следует предсказывать будущее, думал старик. К две тысячи тридцать четвертому году человек давно бы уже должен был стать властителем если и не половины Галактики, то хотя бы Солнечной системы. Гомеру это обещали еще в детстве. Но и фантасты, и ученые исходили из того, что человечество рационально и последовательно. Как будто оно не состояло из нескольких миллиардов ленивых, легкомысленных, увлекающихся личностей, а было неким ульем, наделенным коллективным разумом и единой волей.

Ani uczeni, ani fantaści nie umieli jak należy przewidywać przyszłości. Do 2034 roku człowiek już dawno powinien był zapanować jeśli nie nad połową Galaktyki, to przynajmniej Układu Słonecznego. Lecz zarówno fantaści, jak i uczeni wychodzili z założenia, że ludzkość jest racjonalna i konsekwentna. Tak jakby nie składała się z kilku miliardów leniwych, lekkomyślnych, targanych emocjami jednostek, a była jakimś ulem obdarzonym zbiorowym umysłem i jedną wolą. Tak jakby biorąc się za zdobywanie kosmosu miała zamiar zająć się nim na poważnie, a nie rezygnować w pół drogi, kiedy nowa zabawka się znudziła, i przerzucić się na elektronikę, a z elektroniki na biotechnologię, w niczym w końcu nie osiągnąwszy zbyt imponujących rezultatów. Może oprócz fizyki jądrowej.

Sein Verhältnis zu Jelena war von einer sanften Zärtlichkeit geprägt gewesen, aber sie hatten sich einfach zu spät kennengelernt, um sich rückhaltlos zu lieben. In ihrem Alter war es nicht mehr darum gegangen, ihre Leidenschaft zu stillen; sie waren zusammengekommen, um die Schatten der Vergangenheit hinter sich zu lassen und ihre Einsamkeit zu lindern.

Mit der gleichen Leichtigkeit, mit der wir das Bild unseres Großvaters oder Schulfreunds aus unserem Gedächtnis entlassen, wird auch uns selbst einst jemand ins absolute Nichts entlassen. Die Erinnerung an einen Menschen kann seine Gebeine überdauern, doch sobald der letzte fortgeht, der sich an uns erinnert, lösen auch wir uns mit ihm in der Zeit auf.