The Solitude Of Prime Numbers Quotes

Choices are made in brief seconds and paid for in the time that remains.

People took what they wanted, they clutched at coincidences, the few there were, and made a life from them. . . . Choices are made in brief seconds and paid for in the time that remains.

She hadn't chosen him over all the others. The truth was that she hadn't even thought about anyone else.

You'll get used to it. In the end you won't even notice it anymore," he said. "How is that possible? It will always be there, right before my eyes." "Exactly," said Mattia. "Which is precisely why you won't see it anymore.

She was tired, with that tiredness that only emptiness brings.

They lived the slow and invisible interpenetration of their universes, like two stars gravitating around a common axis, in ever tighter orbits, whose clear destiny is to coalesce at some point in space and time.

In fact, they didn't talk much at all, but they spent time together, each in his own abyss, held safe and tight by the other's silence.

Even though he was afraid to admit it, when he was with her it seemed it was worth doing all those normal things that normal people do.

Mattia thought that he and Alice were like that, twin primes, alone and lost, close but not close enough to really touch each other.

His scars were hidden and safe in her hand.

Twin primes: pairs of prime numbers that are close to each other, almost neighbors, but between them there is always an even number that prevents them from truly touching. If you have the patience to go on counting, you discover that these pairs gradually become rarer. You encounter increasingly isolated primes, lost in that silent, measured space made only of ciphers, and you develop a distressing presentiment that the pairs encountered up until that point were accidental, that solitude is the true destiny. Then, just when you’re about to surrender, when you no longer have the desire to go on counting, you come across another pair of twins, clutching each other tightly.

In the end it happens, in some way you couldn't imagine before.

It was strange to find them here, still alive, with their shared bits of past that suddenly counted for nothing.

He opened his mouth to reply that feeling special is the worst kind of cage that a person can build for himself, but he didn't say anything.

Do you really like studying?" Mattia nodded. "Why?" "It's the only thing I know how to do," he said shortly. He wanted to tell her that he liked studying because you can do it alone, because all the things you study are already dead, cold, and chewed over. He wanted to tell her that the pages of the schoolbooks were all the same temperature, that they left you time to choose, that they never hurt you and you couldn't hurt them either. But he said nothing.

but his eyes were too dark for her to make out any spark in them

With a little effort, she could get up by herself.

Numbers are everywhere," said Denis. "They're always the same, aren't they?" "Yes." "But Alice is only here." "Yes." "So you've already made up your mind.

Prime numbers are divisible only by 1 and by themselves. They hold their place in the infinite series of natural numbers, squashed, like all numbers, between two others, but one step further than the rest. They are suspicious, solitary numbers, which is why Mattia thought they were wonderful. Sometimes he thought that they had ended up in that sequence by mistake, that they'd been trapped, like pearls strung on a necklace. Other times he suspected that they too would have preferred to be like all others, just ordinary numbers, but for some reason they couldn't do it. This second thought struck him mostly at night, in the chaotic interweaving of images that comes before sleep, when the mind is too weak to tell itself lies.

...finally her hands, so light, holding his head still and catching all his thoughts and imprisoning them there, in the space that no longer existed between them.

She found herself thinking of how it would feel to be safely trapped in his arms, with no more possibility to choose.

The scene was set. All that was required was an action, a cold start, instant and brutal as beginnings always are.

Denis's love for Mattia had burned itself out, like a forgotten candle in an empty room, leaving behind a ravenous discontent.

she and Mattia were united by an invisible, elastic thread, buried under a pile of meaningless things, a thread that could exist only between two people like themselves: two people who had acknowledged their own solitude within the other.

Separating them were two layers of brick, a few inches of plaster, and nine years of silence.

Mathematicians call them twin primes: pairs of prime numbers that are close to each other, almost neighbors, but between them there is always an even number that prevents them from truly touching. Numbers like 11 and 13, like 17 and 19, 41 and 43. If you have the patience to go on counting, you discover that these pairs gradually become rarer. You encounter increasingly isolated primes, lost in that silent, measured space made only of ciphers, and you develop a distressing presentiment that the pairs encountered up until that point were accidental, that solitude is the true destiny. Then, just when you’re about to surrender, when you no longer have the desire to go on counting, you come across another pair of twins, clutching each other tightly. There is a common conviction among mathematicians that however far you go, there will always be another two, even if no one can say where exactly, until they are discovered. Mattia thought that he and Alice were like that, twin primes, alone and lost, close but not close enough to really touch each other. He had never told her that. When he imagined confessing these things to her, the thin layer of sweat on his hands evaporated completely and for a good ten minutes he was no longer capable of touching anything.

Why did you choose to stay here?" (...) "I don't know," he said. "It's as if there's more oxygen here.

All Mattia saw was a shadow moving toward him. He instinctively closed his eyes and then felt Alice’s hot mouth on his, her tears on his cheek, or maybe they weren’t hers, and finally her hands, so light, holding his head still and catching all his thoughts and imprisoning them there, in the space that no longer existed between them.

Las decisiones se toman en unos segundos y se pagan el resto de la vida.

C'era stata quella volta e ce n'erano state infinite altre, che Alice non ricordava più, perché l'amore di chi non amiamo si deposita sulla superficie e da lì evapora in fretta.

She remembered lying in the crevasse, buried by snow. She thought of that perfect silence. Also now, like then, no one knew where she was. This time too, no one would come. But she no longer expected them to. She smiled at the clear sky. With a little effort, she could get up by herself.

There had been that time and there had been an infinite number of others, which Alice no longer remembered, because the love of those we don't love in return settles on the surface and from there quickly evaporates.

إن شعور المرء بكونه مميزا هو أسوأ أنواع الأقفاص التى يمكن للمرء أن يبنيه.

Porque estaban unidos por un hilo invisible, oculto entre mil cosas de poca importancia, que sólo podía existir entre dos personas como ellos: dos soledades que se reconocían.

Then he realized it was the most natural thing in the world, which was precisely why he was incapable of it.

We drove around for half an hour in search of two free parking spaces because you couldn't get into a single one," he said, to banish those thoughts. "It was just an excuse to keep you with me," Alice replied. "But you never understood anything.

Por primera vez sintió que la inmensa distancia que los separaba era insignificante. Estaba convencida de que él seguía en el mismo sitio, donde ya le había escrito algunas veces, muchos años antes. Porque estaban unidos por un hilo invisible, oculto entre mil cosas de poca importancia, que sólo podía existir entre dos personas como ellos: dos soledades que se reconocían.

Se había atado a él con la obstinación con que uno se ata a las cosas que lo perjudican.

Alleen en verloren, vlak bij elkaar, maar niet dicht genoeg om elkaar echt te raken.

Those nights when the future seemed to last only till the morning and he would count off the hours, one by one, by the chimes of distant church bells.

If we couldn't see anything outside the car, if we didn't know we were moving, there would be no way of telling whether it was the raindrops' fault or our own.

No, what she had in front of her was a grown-up person who had built a life around a terrifying abyss, on terrain that had already collapsed, and yet who had succeeded, far away from here, among people Alice didn't know.

She emptied herself of Fabio and of herself, of all the useless efforts she had made to get where she was and find nothing there. With detached curiosity she observed the rebirth of her weaknesses, her obsessions. This time she would let them decide, since she hadn't been able to do anything anyway. Against certain parts of yourself you remain powerless, she said to herself, as she regressed pleasurably to the time when she was a girl.

... perché sapeva che Mattia parlava poco ma, quando lo faceva, valeva la pena di stare zitti e ascoltare.

Hij deed zijn mond open om te antwoorden dat je speciaal voelen de ergste kooi is die je om je heen kunt bouwen, maar hij zei niets.

It was another of the things he had left behind, another obvious step in a boy's life that he had decided not to take, so as to stay as far as possible from the machinery of life.

She couldn't remember what they had talked about, only that she had looked at her rapt from a place just behind her eyes, a place full of jumbled thoughts that she had kept to herself even then.

Mattia thought there was nothing good about having his mind. That he would happily have unscrewed it and replaced it with a different one, or even with a package of biscotti, provided it was empty and light. He opened his mouth to reply that feeling special is the worst kind of cage that a person can build for himself, but he didn't say anything.

When she opened her eyes the sky was still there, with its monotonous and brilliant blue. Not a cloud passed across it.

this meant he had reached the end of the track that he had blindly followed from the first year of primary school to graduation.

He was dressed anonymously and had the posture of someone who doesn't know how to occupy the space of his own body.

Ci si può ammalare anche solo di un ricordo, e lei era ammalata.

It was like being wrapped in a sheet, all white, nothing but white, above, below, all around you. It was the exact opposite of darkness, but it frightened Alice in precisely the same way.

Mattia was right: the days had slipped over her skin like a solvent, one after the other, each removing a very thin layer of pigment from her tattoo, and from both of their memories. The outlines, like the circumstances, were still there, black and well delineated, but the colors had merged together until they faded into a dull, uniform tonality, a neutral absence of meaning.

He collected the stories of people like himself, mostly keeping silent and listening. He slowly discovered that the stories were similar, that there was a process, and that the process involved immersion, putting your whole head under until you touched the bottom and only then coming up for air.

For Alice and Mattia, the high school years were an open wound that had seemed so deep that it could never heal. They had passed through them without breathing, he rejecting the world and she feeling rejected by it, and eventually they had noticed that it didn't make all that much difference. They had formed a defective and asymmetrical friendship, made up of long absences and much silence, a clean and empty space where both could come back to breathe when the walls of their school became too close for them to ignore the feeling of suffocation.

By now he had learned. Choices are made in brief seconds and paid for in the time that remains. It had happened with Michela and then with Alice and again now. He recognized them this time: those seconds were there, and he would never make a mistake again.

-Pero no quiero verlo más. -Te acostumbrarás, al final ni repararás en él. -¿Y cómo, si lo tendré siempre a la vista? -Por eso, por eso mismo dejarás de verlo.

They had passed through them in a state of apnoea, he rejecting the world and she feeling rejected by it, and they had noticed that it didn’t make a big difference.

الناس يكتسبون الثقة بالنفس كلما تقدموا فى السن.

How she longed for the uninhibitedness of kids her age, their vacuous sense of immortality.

the love of those we don’t love in return settles on the surface and from there quickly evaporates.

That evening, getting up from the table, she had crossed the invisible boundary beyond which things start working by themselves.

L'unica cosa certa era che lui era tornato e che lei avrebbe voluto non se ne andasse più.

Mattia pensaba que él y Alice eran eso, dos primos gemelos solos y perdidos, próximos pero nunca juntos.

No tenían nada en común, salvo el no querer estar allí ese día.

She tried to open the bottle, but the top slipped through her fingers without moving. He took the bottle from her hand and opened it using only his thumb and index finger. Alice thought there was nothing special in the gesture, that she could have done it herself, like anyone else, if only her hands hadn't been so sweaty. And yet she found it strangely fascinating, like a small heroic feat performed specially for her.

Mattia's voice no longer stirred anything in his stomach, but he was aware of the idea of him and always would be, as the only true benchmark for everything that had come afterward.

The whole house, its very walls, was impregnated with a smell of vitality that he was unused to. He thought about his own apartment, where it was so easy to decide simply not to exist.

Había aprendido a respetar el abismo que Mattia se había excavado alrededor. Años atrás quiso saltarlo y se había despeñado. Ahora se conformaba con sentare en el borde y dejar colgar las piernas.

No pedía mucho; sólo la normalidad que siempre había merecido.

His wife was disappearing from life like a wet mark drying on a shirt.

ما تراه فى المرآة هو أقرب مما يكون عليه فى الواقع.

Con un poco de esfuerzo podría levantarse sola.

C'era qualcosa, che le faceva venire voglia di avvicinarsi, di sollevargli il mento e di dirgli guardami, sono qui.

Perché aveva paura ad ammetterlo, ma quando era con lei sembrava che valesse la pena di fare tutte le cose normali che le persone normali fanno.

Parlavano poco, ma trascorrevano il tempo insieme, ognuno concentrato sulla propria voragine, con l'altro che lo teneva stretto e in salvo, senza bisogno di tante parole.

Ecco. Ci pensava spesso. Di nuovo. Era come un altra delle sue malattie, dalla quale non voleva veramente guarire. Ci si può ammalare anche solo di un ricordo e lei era ammalata.

Le persone invecchiando acquistavano sicurezza, mentre lui la perdeva, come se la sua fosse una riserva limitata

Una trepidazione piacevole si prese tutte le sue ossa e la fece sorridere, come se il tempo ricominciasse esattamente da lì.

Era quello che aveva immaginato così spesso. Non proprio uguale, in realtà, ma per una volta decise di non fare caso alle imperfezioni

Vicini ma non abbastanza per sfiorarsi davvero.

By now he had learned. Choices are made in brief seconds and paid for in the time that remains.

With photography Alice liked the actions more than the results. She liked opening the back of the camera and unrolling the new film a couple of inches, just enough to catch it in the runner, and thinking that this empty film would soon become something and not knowing what, taking the first few snaps into the void, aiming, focusing, checking her balance, deciding whether to include or exclude pieces of reality as she saw fit, enlarging, distorting.

Every time she heard the click of the shutter, followed by that faint rustle, she remembered when she used to catch grasshoppers in the garden of their house in the mountains when she was a little girl, trapping them between her cupped hands. She thought that it was the same with photographs, only now she seized time and fixed it on celluloid, capturing it halfway through its jump toward the next moment.

Una vez, hablándole de su propia experiencia, Denis le había dicho que los primeros contactos son siempre los mismos, como las aperturas del ajedrez. No es preciso inventar nada, porque ambos buscan lo mismo.

As a little girl she had liked looking at her palms against the light, the red peeking through her closed fingers. Once she had shown it to her father and he had kissed her fingertips, pretending to eat them.

Su madre ya vivía en ella en forma de recuerdo, como un grano de polen que se hubiera posado en algún rincón de su memoria, donde permanecería el resto de su vida convertida en unas cuantas imágenes sin sonido.

— Привыкнешь. В конце концов и замечать не будешь, — наконец выдавил он. — Как? Это же останется навсегда, так и будет все время у меня на глазах. — Вот именно, — подтвердил Маттиа. — Поэтому и перестанешь замечать.

They weren't smiling and were looking in opposite directions, but it was as if their bodies flowed smoothly into each other's, through their arms and fingers. . . . There was a shared space between their bodies, the confines of which were not well delineated, from which nothing seemed to be missing and in which the air seemed motionless, undisturbed.

Sapeva che il disordine del mondo non può che aumentare, che il rumore di fondo crescerà fino a coprire ogni segnale coerente, ma era convinto che misurando attentamente ogni suo gesto avrebbe avuto meno colpa di questo lento disfacimento.

Aquela imagem parada fez emergir outras e a mente de Alice juntou-as recriando o movimento, os fragmentos de sons, farrapos de sensações. Sentiu-se invadida por uma nostalgia lancinante, mas agradável. Se pudesse escolher um momento a partir do qual recomeçar escolheria precisamente esse: ela e Mattia num quarto silencioso, com as suas intimidades que hesitavam tocar-se mas cujos contornos coincidiam exactamente.

Prime numbers are divisible only by 1 and by themselves. They hold their place in the infinite series of natural numbers, squashed, like all numbers, between two others, but one step further than the rest. They are suspicious, solitary numbers, which is why Mattia thought they were wonderful. Sometimes he thought that they had ended up in that sequence by mistake, that they'd been trapped, like pearls strung on a necklace. Other times he suspected that they too would have preferred to be like all the others, just ordinary numbers, but for some reason they couldn't do it. This second thought struck him mostly at night, in the chaotic interweaving of images that comes before sleep, when the mind is too weak to tell itself lies. In his first year at university, Mattia had learned that, among prime numbers, there are some that are even more special. Mathematicians call them twin primes: pairs of prime numbers that are close to each other, almost neighbors, but between them there is always an even number that prevents them from truly touching. Numbers like 11 and 13, like 17 and 19, 41 and 43. If you have the patience to go on counting, you discover that these pairs gradually become rarer. You encounter increasingly isolated primes, lost in that silent, measured space made only of ciphers, and you develop a distressing presentiment that the pairs encountered up until that point were accidental, that solitude is the true destiny. Then, just when you're about to surrender, when you no longer have the desire to go on counting, you come across another pair of twins, clutching each other tightly. There is a common conviction among mathematicians that however far you go, there will always be another two, even if no one can say where exactly, until they are discovered.

O beijo durou, minutos inteiros, tempo suficiente para que a realidade encontrasse uma fresta entre as suas bocas aderentes e se enfiasse por aí adentro, obrigando ambos a analisar o que estavam a fazer. Separaram-se. Mattia sorriu apressadamente, automaticamente, e Alice levou um dedo aos lábios húmidos, quase que a certificar-se se tinha realmente acontecido. Havia uma decisão a tomar e tinha de ser tomada sem falar. Olharam um para o outro, alternadamente, mas já tinham perdido a sincronia e os seus olhos não se encontraram.

I numeri primi sono divisibili soltanto per 1 e per se stessi.Se ne stanno al loro posto nell'infinita serie dei numeri naturali,schiacciati come tutti fra due, ma un passo in là rispetto agli altri.Sono numeri sospettosi e solitari e per questo Mattia li trovava meravigliosi.Certe volte pensava che in quella sequenza ci fossero finiti per sbaglio,che vi fossero rimasti intrappolati come perline infilate in una collana.Altre volte,invece,sospettava che anche a loro sarebbe piaciuto essere come tutti,solo dei numeri qualunque,ma che per qualche motivo non ne fossero capaci.Il secondo pensiero lo sfiorava soprattutto di sera, nell'intrecciarsi caotico di immagini che precede il sonno,quando la mente è troppo debole per raccontarsi delle bugie.

Se si ha la pazienza di andare avanti a contare, si scopre che queste coppie via via si diradano.Ci si imbatte in numeri primi sempre più isolati,smarriti in quello spazio silenzioso e cadenzato fatto solo di cifre e si avverte il presentimento angosciante che le coppie incontrate fino a lì fossero un fatto accidentale,che il vero destino sia quello di rimanere soli.Poi,proprio quando ci si sta per arrendere,quando non si ha più voglia di contare, ecco che ci si imbatte in altri due gemelli, avvinghiati stretti l'uno all'altro. [...] Mattia pensava che lui e Alice erano così,due primi gemelli,soli e perduti,vicini ma non abbastanza per sfiorarsi davvero.

Pela primeira vez, Mattia envergonhou-se de aos vinte e dois anos de idade ainda não ter carta de condução. Era outra das coisas que havia deixado para trás, outro passo óbvio na vida de um rapaz que ele escolhera não dar, para se manter o mais possível fora da engrenagem da vida. Como comer pipocas no cinema, como sentar-se nas costas de um banco, como não respeitar a hora de entrada em casa imposta pelos pais, como jogar futebol com uma bola de estanho enrolada ou estar de pé, nu, em frente a uma rapariga. Pensou que a partir daquele dia tudo seria diferente. Decidiu que ia tirar a carta de condução o mais depressa possível. Fá-lo-ia por ela, para a levar a passear. Porque tinha medo de o admitir, mas quando estava com ela parecia que valia a pena fazer todas as coisas normais que as pessoas normais fazem.

Cuando estaba con ella sentía que valía la pena hacer todas esas cosas normales que hacen las personas normales. Mattia pensó que nada bueno había en tener una cabeza como la suya, que con ganas se la habría arrancado y sustituido por otra, incluso por una caja de galletas siempre que estuviera vacía y fuera ligera. Quiso contestar que sentirse especial era una jaula, lo peor que podía pasarle a uno, pero se abstuvo. Estaban unidos por un hilo invisible, oculto entre mil cosas de poca importancia, que sólo podía existir entre dos personas como ellos: dos soledades que se reconocían. No lo había elegido entre nadie; no había pensado en nadie más.

I numeri primi sono divisibili soltanto per 1 e per sè stessi. Se ne stanno al loro posto nell’infinita serie dei numeri naturali, schiacciati come tutti fra due, ma un passo in là rispetto agli altri. Sono numeri sospettosi e solitari e per questo Mattia li trovava meravigliosi. Certe volte pensava che in quella sequenza ci fossero finiti per sbaglio, che vi fossero rimasti intrappolati come perline infilate in una collana. Altre volte, invece, sospettava che anche a loro sarebbe piaciuto essere come tutti, solo dei numeri qualunque, ma che per qualche motivo non ne fossero capaci.In un corso del primo anno Mattia aveva studiato che tra i numeri primi ce ne sono alcuni ancora più speciali. I matematici li chiamano primi gemelli: sono coppie di numeri primi che se ne stanno vicini,anzi,quasi vicini, perchè fra di loro vi è sempre un numero pari che gli impedisce di toccarsi per davvero. Numeri come l’11 e il 13, come il 17 e il 19, il 41 e il 43. Se si ha la pazienza di andare avanti a contare, si scopre che queste coppie via via si diradano. ci si imbatte in numeri primi sempre più isolati, smarriti in quello spazio silenzioso e cadenzato fatto solo di cifre e si avverte il presentimento angosciante che le coppie incontrate fino a lì fossero un fatto accidentale, che il vero destino sia quello di rimanere soli.Poi, proprio quando ci si sta per arrendere, quando non si ha più voglia di contare, ecco che ci si imbatte in altri due gemelli, avvinghiati stretti l’uno all’altro. Tra i matematici è convinzione comune che per quanto si possa andare avanti, ve ne saranno sempre altri due, anche se nessuno può dire dove, finchè non li si scopre. Mattia pensava che lui e Alice erano così, due primi gemelli, soli e perduti, vicini ma non abbastanza per sfiorarsi davvero.

I numeri primi sono divisibili soltanto per 1 e per sè stessi. Se ne stanno al loro posto nell’infinita serie dei numeri naturali, schiacciati come tutti fra due, ma un passo in là rispetto agli altri. Sono numeri sospettosi e solitari e per questo Mattia li trovava meravigliosi. Certe volte pensava che in quella sequenza ci fossero finiti per sbaglio, che vi fossero rimasti intrappolati come perline infilate in una collana. Altre volte, invece, sospettava che anche a loro sarebbe piaciuto essere come tutti, solo dei numeri qualunque, ma che per qualche motivo non ne fossero capaci.In un corso del primo anno Mattia aveva studiato che tra i numeri primi ce ne sono alcuni ancora più speciali. I matematici li chiamano primi gemelli: sono coppie di numeri primi che se ne stanno vicini,anzi,quasi vicini, perchè fra di loro vi è sempre un numero pari che gli impedisce di toccarsi per davvero. Numeri come l’11 e il 13, come il 17 e il 19, il 41 e il 43. Se si ha la pazienza di andare avanti a contare, si scopre che queste coppie via via si diradano. ci si imbatte in numeri primi sempre più isolati, smarriti in quello spazio silenzioso e cadenzato fatto solo di cifre e si avverte il presentimento angosciante che le coppie incontrate fino a lì fossero un fatto accidentale, che il vero destino sia quello di rimanere soli.Poi, proprio quando ci si sta per arrendere, quando non si ha più voglia di contare, ecco che ci si imbatte in altri due gemelli, avvinghiati stretti l’uno all’altro. Tra i matematici è convinzione comune che per quanto si possa andare avanti, ve ne saranno sempre altri due, anche se nessuno può dire dove, finchè non li si scopre. Mattia pensava che lui e Alice erano così, due primi gemelli, soli e perduti, vicini ma non abbastanza per sfiorarsi davvero. A lei non l’aveva mai detto.