Quotes from Ismail Kadare

Literature led me to freedom, not the other way round.

For a writer, New York works well. Literary work is very elitist. I worked two hours a day, maximum, and the time after that was very agreeable. I walked a lot with pleasure. Those two hours augmented the day. I wrote more here than in Paris, an entire chapter of a new novel.

For a writer, personal freedom is not so important. It is not individual freedom that guarantees the greatness of literature; otherwise, writers in democratic countries would be superior to all others. Some of the greatest writers wrote under dictatorship - Shakespeare, Cervantes.

If an animal has to be sacrificed when a new bridge is built, what will it take to build a whole new world?

A mountaineer's house, before being his home and the home of his family, is the home of God and of guests.

We cannot deny that 80 or even 90 percent of the spiritual treasures from the past 3,000 years have come from Europe. There is no other Greek theatre anywhere else in the world. There is no other Shakespeare, Dante or Cervantes.

It is well known that in the Communist countries, and especially in my own, Albania, readers were often called upon to demonstrate their vigilance by detecting and denouncing the 'errors' of authors.

I first came across the script for 'Macbeth' between the ages of 11 and 12; it was the first book that shook my life. Because I did not yet understand that I could simply purchase it in a bookstore, I copied much of it by hand and took it home. My childhood imagination pushed me to feel like a co-author of the play.

For me as a writer, Albanian is simply an extraordinary means of expression - rich, malleable, adaptable. As I have said in my latest novel, 'Spiritus,' it has modalities that exist only in classical Greek, which puts one in touch with the mentality of antiquity.

In antiquity, there were three regions in southern Europe: Greece, Rome, and Ilyria. Albanian is the only survivor of the Ilyrian languages. That is why it has always intrigued the great linguists of the past.

I consider I've had a good day when, among the lines I've written, I've produced from my innermost core what I call 'the appearance of the pearl.' That could refer to a discovery, a sense of harmonious cohesiveness, or something like that.

I am of the opinion that I am not a political writer, and, moreover, that as far as true literature is concerned, there actually are no political writers. I think that my writing is no more political than ancient Greek theatre. I would have become the writer I am in any political regime.

Dictatorship and authentic literature are incompatible... The writer is the natural enemy of dictatorship.

The laws of literary creation are unique; they don't change, and they are the same for everyone everywhere. I mean that you can tell a story that covers three hours of human life or three centuries - it comes to the same thing. Each writer who creates something authentic in a natural way instinctively also creates the technique that suits him.

If I manage to write something that I consider good and valuable in a particular place, that spot automatically has a special aura for me. In Albania, there are two cities where I have written the majority of my work: Gjirokaster, my home city, and Tirana.

The founding father of Albanian literature is the nineteenth-century writer Naim Frasheri. Without having the greatness of Dante or Shakespeare, he is nonetheless the founder, the emblematic character. He wrote long epic poems, as well as lyrical poetry, to awaken the national consciousness of Albania.

Kur shihte se të tjerët nuk mahniteshin aq fort sa ç'e kishte pritur, ai i rikthehej fillimit. Në qytet bëhej nami, kurse ata ishin si në humbellë. Ishim në një kohë që s'është më, më kupton? Koha ecën, orët, dita, të gjitha ecin, kurse ti mbetesh në diçka që s'di si ta quash. Kohë pa kohë. Nën zero...

The government can catch a hare with an oxcart!

At street corners, where walls join, I thought I could see some familiar features, like outlines of human faces, the shadows of cheekbones and eyebrows. They are really there, caught in stone for all time, along with the marks left by earthquakes, winters and scourges wrought by men.

Nuk luftohet nje fatalitet, e te arsyetosh per te eshte akoma me e kote

No existe pasión o pensamiento maléfico, adversidad o catástrofe, rebelión o crimen, que no proyecte su sombra en los sueños antes de materializarse en el mundo.

Two or three times it occurred to Gjorg that all these men had killed, and that each had his story. But those stories were locked deep within them. It was not just chance that in the glow of the fire their mouths, and even more their jaws, looked as if they had the shape of certain antique locks.

Cuervos sobre la llanura sembrada de muertos, como en las viejas baladas.

Divizije, pukovnije, batoljoni, ?ete, jedinice svih vrsta pomiješat ?e se u gomili lijesova. Potom ?e ih ukrcati u veliki brod koji ?e tromo isploviti iz luke da bi vratio u domovinu ovu armiju svedenu sada na nekoliko tona kalcija i fosfora.