Quotes from Roberto Bolano

I was doing something useful. Something useful no matter how you look at it. Reading is like thinking, like praying, like talking to a friend, like expressing your ideas, like listening to other people's ideas, like listening to music (oh yes), like looking at the view, like taking a walk on the beach. And you, who are so kind, now you must be asking: What did you read, Barry? I read everything.

a woman who didn't cling to the edge of the abyss but plunged into it with curiosity and elegance.

si he de vivir, que sea sin timón y en el delirio

The novel is an imperfect art. It may be the most imperfect of all literary arts. And the more pages you write, the more possibility there is of revealing imperfections...It isn't the same to build a house as it is to build a skyscraper. Often a house is cozier, but to build a skyscraper you have to be very good.

Our necessity. Our open mouth Where bread Goes in And dreams Come out.

a woman who despite her years was still as strong willed as ever, a woman who didn't cling to the edge of the abyss but plunged into it with curiosity and elegance. A woman who plunged into the abyss sitting down.

For the first few miles the highway ran through a little valley dotted with rocks that seemed to have fallen from the sky. Chunks of granite with no origin or context.

una larga espera inerme, una espera cuya columna vertebral era el desamparo, algo muy latinoamericano, por otra parte, una sensación familiar, algo que si uno lo pensaba bien experimentaba todos los días

There is no lyric poetry that isn't the gurgle or chuckle of egoists, the murmur of cheats, the babble of traitors, the burble of social climbers, the warble of faggots.

pain is our only connection with life; only pain can reveal what life is.

Tempus breve est, Ora et labora. We aren't given much time on this earth.

His name is Inaki Echevarne, we had a duel. A fight? I said. No, a duel. And who won? I don't know which of us killed the other, said Belano. Fantastic! I said. Yes, he said.

Estou falando sério:o segredo está em proporcionar um enterro digno às pessoas de poucos recursos, inclusive com alguma elegância (nisso os franceses, acredite, são campeões), um funeral de burgueses para a pequena burguesia e um funeral de pequenos-burgueses para o proletariado, esse é o segredo de tudo, não só das empresas funerárias, mas da vida em geral!

mis enemigos deben de creer que ya estoy criando malvas en el cementerio.

A blind life in which everything had the transparency of water.

El Ojo seguía siendo una persona rara y sin embargo asequible, alguien que no imponía su presencia, alguien al que le podías decir adiós en cualquier momento de la noche y él solo te diría adiós, sin un reproche, sin un insulto, una especie de chileno ideal, estoico y mable, un ejemplar que nunca había abandonado mucho en Chile pero que solo allí se podía encontrar.

la vida no sólo es vulgar sino también inexplicable

Nur die Lyrik ist nicht verseucht. Nur die Lyrik ist frei von Kommerz… Nur die Lyrik, und auch nicht jede, ist gesunde Nahrung und keine Scheiße.

Les Misérablesis a book I read in Mexico many years ago and left behind in Mexico when I left Mexico for good, and I'm not planning to buy it or reread it, because there's no point reading, much less rereading books that have been made into movies...

Yo empecé a escribir porque la poesía me hace más libre, maestro, y nunca lo voy a dejar.

She was just a sad girl, I think, lost now among the multitudes.

IWhen you know something, you know it, and when you don't, you'd better learn. And in the meantime, you should keep quiet, or at least speak only when what you say will advance the learning process.

Los boxeadores chilenos son todos unos maricones, los habitantes de este país de mierda son todos unos maricones, todos sin excepción, dispuestos a dejarse engañar, dispuestos a dejarse comprar, dispuestos a bajarse los pantalones cuando uno sólo les ha pedido que se quiten el reloj.

la noche del DF, una noche que a mí siempre me ha parecido preciosa, generalmente las noches aquí son frescas, brillantes, pero no frías, noches hechas para pasear o para coger, noches hechas para platicar sin apuro.