Quotes from Paul Auster

In the streets, everything is bodies and commotion, and like it or not, you cannot enter them without adhering to a rigid protocol of behavior. To walk among the crowd means never going faster than anyone else, never lagging behind your neighbor, never doing anything to disrupt the flow of human traffic. If you play by the rules of this game, people will tend to ignore you.

Toda vida es inexplicable. Por muchos hechos que se cuenten, por muchos datos que se muestren, lo esencial se resiste a ser contado.

No importa -decía-. Un hombre debe vivir el presente y ¿qué importa quién eres la semana pasada, si sabes quién eres hoy?

whenever someone asks him why he smokes, he inevitably answers: "Because I like to cough.

Six days ago, a man blew himself up by the side of a road in northern Wisconsin.

L'unica costante a questo mondo è la merda, ragazzo mio. Ci stiamo in piedi a mollo ogni giorno, ma a volte, quando arriva alle ginocchia o anche più su, devi solo tirarti fuori e andare avanti.

Don't be a writer; it's a terrible way to live your life. There's nothing to be gained from it but poverty and obscurity and solitude. So if you have a taste for all those things, which means that you really are burning to do it, then go ahead and do it. But don't expect anything from anybody.

Here I am of the air, a beautiful thing for the light to shine on. Perhaps you will remember that.

As long as we avoided the real subject, the spell could not be broken. We both slipped naturally into this kind of banter, and it became all the more powerful because neither of us abandoned the charade. We knew what we were doing, but at the same time we pretended not to.

Expect the unexpected, they say, but once the unexpected happens, the last thing you expect is that it will happen again.

the only one with an ear for prose who could follow his arguments about why Flannery O'Conner and Grace Paley were bolder, more inventive stylists than Bellow, Updike, or any other American man except perhaps Baldwin,

He finds a fresh sheet of paper. He lays it out on the table before him and writes these words with his pen. It was. It will never be again. Remember.

Ha az ember annyi id?t megélt, mint én, hajlamos azt hinni, már mindent hallott, nincs már, ami megdöbbentse. Önelégülten hiszi, hogy ismeri a világot, aztán id?nként jön valami, ami kirántja a fels?bbrend? önelégültség gubójából, ami újra emlékezteti, hogy kutyagumit se tud az életr?l.

If I can give you the words you need to have, we will have a great victory.

Rather than punch the girl in the face, he abruptly stood up from his seat and walked away.

He did not seem to be a man occupying space, but rather a block of impenetrable space in the forum of a man. The world bounced off him, shattered against him, at times adhered to him - but it never got through.

je sais avec quelle facilité les perceptions peuvent être déformées par un seul mot glissé dans la mauvaise oreille.

Juk tikrasis išbandymas yra b?ti tokiam kaip visi. kai tai ?vyksta, jam nebereikia abejoti savo išskirtinumu. Jis laisvas - ne tik nuo kit?, bet ir nuo sav?s.

Unless we can begin to embody the notion of change in the words we use, we will continue to be lost.

Existimos para nosotros mismos, quizá, y a veces vislumbramos quiénes somos, pero al final nunca podemos estar seguros, y mientras nuestras vidas continúan, nos volvemos cada vez más opacos para nosotros mismos, más y más conscientes de nuestra propia incoherencia

Literature is essentially loneliness. It is written in solitude, it is read in solitude and, in spite of everything, the act of reading allows a communication between two human beings.

I was. Then I wasn't anymore. Then I was. Then I wasn't. Now who knows. If the years have taught me anything, kid, it's that anything can happen.

Baudelaire: Il me semble que je serais toujours bien là où je ne suis pas. In other words: It seems to me that I will always be happy in the place where I am not. Or, more bluntly: Wherever I am not is the place where I am myself. Or else, taking the bull by the horns: Anywhere out of the world.

Your bare feet on the cold floor as you climb out of bed and walk to the window. You are sixty-four years old. Outside, the air is gray, almost white, with no sun visible. You ask yourself: How many mornings are left? A door has closed. Another door has opened. You have entered the winter of your life.