Quotes from Bohumil Hrabal

It never ceased to amaze me, until suddenly one day I felt beautiful and holy for having had the courage to hold on to my sanity after all I'd seen and been through, body and soul, in too loud a solitude, and slowly I came to the realization that my work was hurtling me headlong into an infinite field of omnipotence.

and as I was saying, one won't have it easy with him, when Uncle Pepin worked the malt house, that son of mine took up with him, to not be at home, when dark came and we couldn't find him, he would be in the stables, at the troughs with oxen breathing down on him, happier hobnobbing with oxen than in his own home, as I say, one will not have it in any way easy with him.

Our heads met, our eyes crossed paths, the window to the courtyard lay open, I whispered in his ear and he started crying in my hair, wept like a child, I stroked him, touched by his crying, that he opened up, as he truly was, rent his shirt and exposed his heart like the paintings of Jesus hung over the beds in country houses.

it's my only defense against a beautiful misery.

The heavens are not humane, but I'd forgotten compassion and love.

Nebesa nejsou humánní a já už toho mám dost.

Most of all I enjoy central-heating control rooms, where men with higher education, chained to their jobs like dogs to their kennels, write the history of their times as a sort of sociological survey and where I learned how the fourth estate was depopulated and the proletariat went from base to superstructure and how the university-trained elite now carries on its work.

y es que yo puedo permitirme el lujo de abandonarme porque nunca estoy abandonado, estoy solo para poder vivir en una soledad poblada de pensamientos,...

You can't rid yourself of freedom the way you'd rid yourself of lice, brother.

The closest one person can get to another is through silence.

She closed her eyes and pushed her head into the dog's fur so she wouldn't see what terrified her and filled her with longing at the same time.

Doua lucruri imi stapanesc mintea, mereu si staruitor minunandu-ma: cerul instelat deasupra mea si legea morala in mine.

I cieli non sono umani e la vita sopra di me e sotto di me e dentro di me neppure.

It is by and from books that I've learned that the heavens are not humane, neither the heavens nor any man with a head on his shoulders—it's not that men don't wish to be humane, it just goes against common sense.

The heavens may be far from humane, but I'd had about all I could take. So

Já když ?tu, tak vlastnÄ› ne?tu, já si naberu do zobá?ku krásnou vÄ›tu a cucám ji jako bonbón, jako bych popíjel skleni?ku likéru tak dlouho, až ta myÅ¡lenka se ve mnÄ› rozplývá tak jako alkohol, tak dlouho se do mne vstÃ…â"¢ebává, až je nejen v mým mozku a srdci, ale hrká mými žilami až do koÃ…â"¢ínk? cév.

So there they stood, side by side, the better for me to compare them, an elderly gentleman and a young man, as thousands of cobalt-colored flies swooped in thousands of wild nosedives, their metallic wings and bodies embroidering an immense tableau vivant made up of constantly shifting curves and splashes like the flow of paint in those gigantic Jackson Pollocks.

one cannot even kill a cat, let alone a person, with impunity, nor can one with impunity expel a person, let alone drive away a cat, without consequences.

Somehow I had reached an age when being in love with a beautiful woman was beyond my reach because I was now bald and my face was full of wrinkles, yet the cats loved me the way girls used to love me when I was young.

Sometimes I felt so badly about those cats that I'd find myself wishing that both I and the cats could simply cease to exist.

El cielo no es humano, pero debe haber algo más que el cielo, la compasión y el amor, pero yo he permitido que se borrasen de mi memoria y cayesen en el olvido.

In the end, when I could no longer hope or believe, when I was already a wreck, why did you take me back, a body without a soul, without love?

Lecz uÅ›miecham siÄ™, bo w teczce niosÄ™ ksi??ki, po których siÄ™ spodziewam, ?e wieczorem dowiem siÄ™ z nich o samym sobie czegoÅ›, czego jeszcze nie wiem.

a horror more intense than pain, and visited it upon them in the moment of truth.