Quotes from Aleksandar Hemon

What is life? This is no life. Who wants this life? The dead leave it to us to struggle in this world. They go elsewhere, wherever it is, and wait for God to sort it all out. But we have to stay here, no matter how hard it is. Nobody can be alone. Life is the life of others. My life, your life, that is nothing.

If there are more dead than living, then the world is about death, and the question is: What are we to do with all the death? Who is going to remember all the dead?

I think it is about life. I think there is always more life than death. Those who lived are always alive for someone. Those who are alive remember life, not death. And when you are dead nothing happens. Death is nothing.

Death comes and takes you away and there is nothing you can do.

You have to create a form from the life that exists, not the other way around. If it comes out in these little pieces, that's what it is.

He acquired the unknowable, variable depths; he could be anyone he wanted to be, and if he didn't like who he became, he could switch again, going in, going out. And who the fuck are you?

If someone imagines that someone loves him, and does not believe he has given any cause for it, he should love in return.

George W. Bush spoke to the camera, his face so decisively earnest that it was clear he was lying, his button eyes lit up with amateurish subterfuge. Only truly great men can be adept at shameless lying, Joshua thought. This dude was straining to the point of snapping.

If my mind and my city were the same thing then I was losing my mind.

All the players looked absurdly inept, as though they were expressly drafted to be humiliated, entrepreneurs in the industry of losing.

Only once did she say: "I love the way you think without thinking

Chief Shippy stands frozen, holding his breath, exhaling with relief as the young man dies, the gun smoke slowly moving across the room, like a school of fish.

And the world around me was nothing if not an infinity of distractions: cute girls, novels and comic books, my budding record collection, neighborhood boys whistling from the playground under my window, beckoning me to a soccer game.

Perhaps if they all remained silent for as long as possible, they'd slip out of this moment into the next one, and then the next one, until all the preceding moments were erased from memory and everything could start all over again. The ultimate American dream: the eternal present, where nothing has ever happened before what is happening now.

You have to be taught to recognize and care about differences, you have to be instructed who you really are; you have to learn how generations of dead people and their incomprehensible accomplishments made you the way you are; you have to define your loyalty to an abstraction-based herd that transcends your individuality.

El hogar es allí donde tu ausencia no pasa desapercibida

Citeam toat? noaptea, toat? ziua, în loc s?-mi fac temele; la È™coal? citeam pe sub banc?[...]. M? simÈ›eam confortabil È™i sigur doar in spaÈ›iul imaginar al literarurii: f?r? un tat? absent, f?r? o mama deprimat?, f?r? b?t?uÈ™ii care m? puneau s? ling paginile c?rÈ›ii pân? când limba mi se înnegrea de la cerneal?.

La 16 ani investeam o gramad? de energie s?-mi afiÈ™ez plictiseala: îmi d?deam ochii peste cap, r?spundeam lapidar la întreb?rile p?rinÈ›ilor, r?mâneam impasibil la poveÈ™tile de via?? pe care le împ?rt??eau. Îmi construisem o armura de fier care îmi permitea s? evadez, s? citesc È™i s? m? întorc în propria-mi celul? f?r? ca nimeni s? observe.

It must be taking enormous energy to do her Janet-did-it-again shtick every day; no wonder she was so worn out.

Rora had heard prayers before, he was well aware that Isus Krist featured in them, he knew the sound well, but knew none by heart. Still, he fell down on his knees, put his hands together, bowed his head— an embodiment of piety— and prayed: Pliva patka preko Save Isus Krist Nosi pismo navrh glave Isus Krist U tom pismu pise Ne volim te vise.

useless characters, pointless details, frequent digressions regarding his own unremarkable, woeful self...

U?ili su još pjesama za kasne sate tuluma; sve se dublje uživljavaju?i u osje?aj koji Bosanci nazvaju SEVDAH- osje?aj ugodnog bola u duši, kad si pomiren sa svojim nesretnim životom, što ti omogu?uje da se potpuno prepustiš uživanju u upravo ovom trenutku.

Escribir no vale de nada si no acarrea la agotadora e irresoluble carga de las decisiones sin consecuencia alguna.

Ipak, nerijetko ga je morila sumnja koja opsjeda srce mnogoga umjetnika: da je njegova umjetnost, iskopana iz najtamnijih dubina njegove duše, ?isto sranje. Ponekad je osje?ao takav stid da bi otkazivao probe. Nije mogao podnijeti razmišljanje o svojim pjesmama-njegovo se odsustvo talenta prostiralo pred njim poput Sahare pred umornim putnikom na smrdljivoj devi.