Quotes from Ismail Kadare

The Pasha sighed. He often did that when he took up quarters before a fortress that had to be taken. It was a reflex prompted by the first impression, always the deepest, before he became accustomed to the situation — it was rather like getting used to a woman.

Idiot,si nuk e paske mesuar se armiku me i madh i njeriut eshte vetvetja? Si s'e ditke ti se nga tjetri ka gjase te shpetosh,por nga vetvetja kurre?

E gjendur per here te pare midis nje dendesie mashkullimi te rrezikshem,te gjithe kaloree e,njekohesisht,te fejuar te vdekjes,ka rene ne dashuri mekshem e me ngut me ta,si njeriu qe do te mbushe zbrazetine e ardhshme,te paskaj...

Hamej, merrini këto valixhe. Të rënda? Janë mbushur me pritje...

Pyramidal phenomena occurred in cycles, without it ever being possible to determine precisely the timing of their appearance: for no one has ever been able to establish with certainty whather what happens is the future, or just the past moving backwards, like a crab. People ended up acccepting that maybe neither the past nor the future were what they were thought to be, since both could reverse their direction of travel, like trams at a terminus (p.119).

Ndarja Ne Stacion Ty dhe lokomotiven ju tronditi nje psheretime e fundit perpara: qielli verior gri si keta binare qe s'piqen gjekundi ashtu s'do te piqemi me kurre une e ti.

Having spent the greater part of my life under a Communist dictatorship, I am very familiar with the Bolshevik mentality according to which an author in general, and an eminent author in particular, is always guilty, and must be punished accordingly.

The great universal literature has always had a tragic relation with freedom. The Greeks renounced absolute freedom and imposed order on chaotic mythology, like a tyrant.

I work only in the morning from 10 to noon. I still write by hand. I interrupt my writing when I feel that I've discovered something beautiful or, on the contrary, when I feel discontent.

In general, literature is a natural adversary of totalitarianism. Tyrannical governments all view literature in the same way: as their enemy. I lived for a long time in a totalitarian state, and I know firsthand that horror.

I lodhur nga medyshjet e linte nganjehere veten te binte ne enderrime pa kuptim. Mendonte se sa mire do te ishte sikur pas shtatorit, te vinte jo tetori me nentorin, por korriku me gushtin. Enderronte nje ere te marre qe te mund te ngaterronte muajt e stinet e vitit, ashtu si era e vjeshtes gjethet e thara.

An Albanian's house is the dwelling of God and the guest.' Of God and the guest, you see. So before it is the house of its master, it is the house of one's guest. The guest, in an Albanian's life, represents the supreme ethical category, more important than blood relations. One may pardon the man who spills the blood of one's father or of one's son, but never the blood of a guest.

Some people," the Vizier went on, "think it's the world of anxieties and dreams – your world, in short – that governs this one. I myself think it's from this world that everything is governed. I think it's this world that chooses the dreams and anxieties and imaginings that ought to be brought to the surface, as a bucket draws water from a well. Do you see what I mean? It's this world that selects what it wants from the abyss.

Who can say it's not what we see with our eyes open that is distorted, and that what's described here isn't the true essence of things?" He slowed down outside a door. "Haven't you ever heard old men sigh that life's a dream?

This is where they keep the dreams about the end of the world, according to the inhabitants of places where the winters are very windy.

It was only a phrase that went from mouth to mouth and was never quite swallowed.

And everything would be different, different.

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

To tell the truth, this was one of the few cases in which she had not told him just what she was thinking. Usually, she let him know whatever thoughts happened to come to her, and indeed he never took it amiss if she let slip a word that might pain him, because when all was said and done that was the price one paid for sincerity.

Who in the world has not yearned for a loved one, has never said, If only he or she could come back just once, just one more time...? Despite the fact that it can never happen, never ever. Surely this is the saddest thing about our mortal world, and its sadness will go on shrouding human life like a blanket of fog until its final extinction.

The days were heavy and sticky. All identical, one the same as the other. Soon they would even get rid of their one remaining distinction, the shell of their names: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday.

Ishte teper e veshtire te futeshe brenda zemres saj.Ishte plot mure te larta akulli dhe rrethuar me mosbesim.Por nese arrije te futeshe,nuk dilje kurre prej aty.

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

Can one move an empire as if it were a house?