Quotes from Roberto Bolano

nuestra relación se iba apagando con la velocidad ¿de qué?, de algo que se apaga muy rápido, las luces de una fábrica al acabar la jornada o mejor las luces de un edificio de oficinas, por ejemplo, presurosas de integrarse en el anonimato de la noche.

To sum up, as Bibiano said, quoting Parra: that's how it goes, the glory of the world; no world, no glory, not even a miserable mortadella sandwich

According to Dieter Hellfeld, a member of the Swedish Academy

Now all I read is poetry. Poetry is the one thing that isn't contaminated, the one thing that isn't part of the game. I don't know if you follow me, Professor. Only poetry—and let me be clear, only some of it—is good for you, only poetry isn't shit.

Los veinte minutos iniciales tuvieron un tono trágico en donde la palabra destino se empleó diez veces y la palabra amistad veinticuatro.

What am I guilty of, then? Of having loved and continuing to love- no, not of loving: of longing.

Someday Neruda and Octavio Paz will shake hands. Sooner or later Paz will make room on Olympus for Neruda. But we will always be on the outside.

Cuando uno lee jamás pierde el tiempo.

Todo realismo visceral era una carta de amor, el pavoreo demencial de un pájaro idiota a la luz de la luna, algo bastante vulgar y sin importancia.

Florita Almada had nothing to say. When 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.

23 de diciembre Hoy no pasó nada. Y si pasó es mejor callarlo, pues no lo entendí.

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.

Si no tienes nada mejor que hacer y los problemas te están matando, consulta a las putas.

I used to read everything, Professor, I read all the time. Now all I read is poetry. Poetry is the one thing that isn't contaminated, the one thing that isn't part of the game. I don't know if you follow me, Professor. Only poetry—and let me be clear, only some of it—is good for you, only poetry isn't shit.

Es extraño: mi sudor es caliente y el sudor de Rosario es frío, reptiliano, y tiene un sabor agridulce (el mío es claramente salado).

Was it the voice of a demon? It did not take me long to discover that it was my own voice, the voice of my superego guiding my dream like a pilot with nerves of steel, it was the super-I driving a refrigerated truck down the middle of a road engulfed in flames, while the id groaned and rambled on in a vaguely Mycenaean jargon. My ego, of course, was sleeping. Sleeping and toiling.

so I could say we had our first real conversation in the sea, and the feeling I had then, the conviction that I wouldn't make it back to shore, the intimation of death by drowning under a matte blue sky, a sky that looked like a lung in a tub of blue paint, persisted throughout all of our subsequent conversations.

Convertía el dolor, que es largo y natural y que siempre vence, en memoria particular, que es humana y breve y que siempre se escabulle

Now even bookish pharmacists are afraid to take on the great, imperfect, torrential works, books that blaze paths into the unknown. They choose the perfect exercises of the great masters. Or what amounts to the same thing: they want to watch the great masters spar, but they have no interest in real combat, when the great masters struggle against that something, that something that terrifies us all, that something that cows us and spurs us on, amid blood and mortal wounds and stench.

El dolor se acumula, decía mi amigo, eso es un hecho, y cuanto mayor sea el dolor menor es la casualidad.

Coincidence, on the other hand, is total freedom, our natural destiny. Coincidence obeys no laws and if it does we don't know what they are. Coincidence, if you'll permit me the simile, is like the manifestation of God at every moment on our planet. A senseless God making senseless gestures at his senseless creatures. In that hurricane, in that osseous implosion, we find communion. The communion of coincidence and effect and the communion of effect with us.

a veces tenía salidas de este tipo, quiero decir que a veces parecía un niño malcriado, pero yo todo se lo perdonaba, todo lo que él hacía me parecía bien.

La muerte no existe, existe la eterna metamorfosis. La

El silencio es como una pantalla blanca que hay que llenar. Si la llenas, ya nada malo puede ocurrirte.