Quotes from Roberto Bolano

Our history consists of the various ways we find to elude the traps that open endlessly before us.

For a while we talked about things I've forgotten now. Or maybe we were silent for a while, me sitting at the foot of his bed, him stretched out with his book, the two of us sneaking looks at each other, listening to the sound the elevator made, as if we were in a dark room or lost in the country at night, just listening to the sound of horses.

It's absurd to see an enchanted princess in every girl who walks by. What do you think you are, a troubadour?

Listen: I don't have anything against autobiographies, so long as the writer has a penis that's twelve inches long when erect. So long as the writer is a woman who was once a whore and is moderately wealthy in her old age.

Posthumous: It sounds like the name of a Roman gladiator, an unconquered gladiator. At least that's what poor Posthumous would like to believe. It gives him courage.

All names disappear. Children should be taught that in elementary school. But we're afraid to teach them.

His words saddened them greatly, though they couldn't say why.

There are silences made just for us.

The strangest part of the dream,' said Pelletier, 'was the water was alive.

Cuando uno sabe, sabe, y cuando no sabe lo mejor es aprender. Y, mientras tanto, no decir nada, a menos que los que uno diga esté encaminado a hacer más claro el aprendizaje. Su vida misma, según explicaba, había sido un aprendizaje constante.

The road to wealth is sown with false starts and failures that should in no way discourage the poor who make good or our neighbors with new found riches. We have to give it our all.

I've been cordially invited to join the visceral realists. I accepted, of course. There was no initiation ceremony. It was better that way.

Uno no termina de leer, aunque los libros se acaben, de la misma manera que uno no termina de vivir, aunque la muerte sea un hecho cierto.

Todo cae por su propio peso, no sé si se entenderá el término caer por su propio peso, imaginaos una estatua hecha de mierda que se hunde lentamente en el desierto, bueno, eso es caer por su propio peso".

It was the tyrannical, slightly stupid thing you say after you've made love.

You have to listen to women. You should never ignore a woman's fears.

The girl replies that she was dreaming about her mother, who died not long ago. The dead are at peace, thinks B stretching out in the bed. As if she had read his mind, the girls says that no one who has passed through this world is at peace. Not anymore, not ever, she says with total conviction.

Absolute beauty, That which contains all the world's majesty and misery And which is only visible to those who love.

Loneliness is an aspect of natural human egotism.

I suppose all the movies I've seen will be worth nothing to me when I die. Wrong. They'll be worth something, believe me. Don't stop going to the movies.

El silencio de la muerte es el peor de los silencios, porque el silencio rulfiano es un silencio aceptado y el rimbaudiano es un silencio buscado, pero el silencio de la muerte es el que corta de tajo lo que pudo ser y nunca más va a poder ser, lo que no sabremos jamás.

There's a secret sickness called Lisa. Like all sicknesses, it's miserable and it comes on at night.

And then we would leave, and by that time it would already be dark, and as we headed to the bus or the subway or went walking home, we would eat our sandwiches, enjoying the Mexico City night, which I've always thought is gorgeous, the nights here are mostly cool and bright but not cold, nights made for walking or fucking, nights made for talking.

Happy are those who own nothing.