Quotes from Olga Tokarczuk

Perhaps there were some angels watching over him; sometimes they turn up on the wrong side.

It's the stars that are imprisoned in their own power, and they cannot really help us. They merely design the nets, and on cosmic looms they weave the warp thread that we must complete with our own weft.

She thought about how hno one had taught us to grow old, how we didn't know what it would be like. When we were young we though of old age as an ailment that affected only other people. While we, for reasons never entirely clear, would remain young. We treated the old as though they were responsible for their condition somehow, as though they'd done something to earn it, like some types of diabetes or arteriosclerosis. And yet this was an ailment that affected the absolute most innocent.

Skaitymas - gana sud?tingas psichologinis percepcijos procesas. <...> Tai reikalauja tam tikros intelektualin?s kompetencijos. Bet vis? pirma, reikalauja d?mesio ir susikaupimo - vis retesni? geb?jim? šiandieniniame pernelyg blaškan?iame pasaulyje

Cz?owiek, którego widzisz, nie dlatego istnieje, ?e go widzisz, ale dlatego, ?e to on na ciebie patrzy.

Mert minél tisztább, minél élesebb a tudat, annál több benne a rettegés. (...) Ha nem tudunk róla, hogy létezünk, megszabadulunk az id?t?l és a haláltól.

En contemplant le paysage noir et blanc du plateau, j'ai compris combien la tristesse était un mot important dans la definition du monde. Elle se trouve a la base de tout, elle est le cinquième élement, la quintessence.

People shouldn't be allowed to live so far away," he said at the front door. "What do you gain by hiding away from the world like this? It'll catch up with you anyway.

I could feel the huge, unbearable burden of my own body.

One period of grief is followed by another, so I am in constant mourning. This is my natural state.

I teraz zrozumia?, sk?d bra?o si? to poczucie braku, smutek le??cy u podstaw wszystkiego, smutek obecny w ka?dej rzeczy, ka?dym zjawisku, od zawsze - nie mo?na naraz poj?? wszystkiego.

A menudo me pregunto por qué nos gustan unas personas y no otras. Y sobre este tema tengo mi propia teoría: existe una forma armónica e ideal a la que de manera instintiva tiende nuestro cuerpo. Escogemos en los otros aquellos rasgos que podrían cumplir con ese ideal. El objetivo de la evolución es meramente estético y nada tiene que ver con ninguna adaptación. A la evolución lo que le interesa es la belleza, alcanzar la máxima perfección de cada forma

Additional senses will appear: the feeling of lack, the taste of absence, the ability for particular precognition. Knowing what won't happen. Being able to smell what doesn't exist.

You know what, sometimes it seems to me we're living in a world that

we fabricate for ourselves. We decide what's good and what isn't, we draw maps of meanings for ourselves . . . And then we spend our whole lives struggling with what we have invented for ourselves. The problem is that each of us has our own version of it, so people find it hard to understand each other.

The tip of his penis rises like a vector, pointing out the window, toward the world.

Older ladies dressed like hippies would maintain that they knew what they were doing.

looked out of the window. Dawn was breaking, and idle snowflakes were gradually starting to fill the nothingness. They were falling slowly, weaving their way through the air and spinning on their own axis like feathers.

Marta háza olyan, mint ? – hozzá hasonlóan nem ismer semmit, sem Istent, sem a teremtményeit, s?t saját magát sem, semmit sem akar tudni a világról. Egyetlen pillanat van benne, csak a "most", az viszont óriási, minden irányban elnyúlik, agyonnyom, nem embernek való.

My life's harvest is not the building material for anything, neither in my time, now, nor in any other, never.

Ibland sätter man grimma på skönheten i det ondas intresse, då reduceras den till fägring för ögat, till båtnad för folket.

Dear brothers, we give you the right to choose your death.

It has to do instead with the presentiment men have at every moment of their lives, a foreboding adamantly hushed and hidden—that left to their own devices, in the dull, quiet company of passing time, they would atrophy faster. As though they'd been designed for a brief spurt of intensity, a high-stakes race, a triumph and, immediately afterward, exhaustion

To tell the truth, I liked the concept of evil people who eliminate each other, in a chain.