Quotes from David Grossman

Twee mensenvlokjes waren we, een kind en zijn moeder, zwevend in het wereldruim, zes volle jaren lang - ze waren in mijn ogen niet meer dan een paar dagen. We waren als een kinderlied, een rijm van daden en van wonderen - totdat heel zacht een zuchtje wind, een vederlichte bries, een wiekslag van een waaier, in de bladeren blies - en het vonnis velde: jij hiernaartoe, hij daarheen - en daarmee was het uit, in honderdduizend scherven.

And this book was an attempt to be with these feelings, also to find a place that will allow both to remember all the time without dying of it and to forget without killing.

Hoe zei jij dat ook alweer, over de wrede keuze: de woordeloosheid levend en levendig houden, of onder woorden brengen.

Jag vill lära mig att skilja minnet från smärtan. Eller åtminstone delvis, så mycket det är möjligt, för att allt som varit inte ska vara till den grad indränkt i smärta. Då ska jag kunna komma ihåg dig mer, du förstår: jag ska inte frukta varje gång minnets brinnande smärta.

Sorgen dömer den levande till en ensamhet utan like, som ensamheten i vilken sjukdomen innesluter den sjuke -

Un corpuscolo trasparente brillava in me, una scintilla, dorata, luminosa. Lo sapevo: ero io, la mia anima, la mia essenza, il senso della mia esistenza. È nata con me, pensavo, e con me morirà... e non sapevo che avrei potuto sopravviverle a lungo, divenire io stessa un'esiliata, un essere umano inaridito. E una bugiarda... che candidamente senza batter ciglio, osa dire: io.

Then a calm fell upon him. The gushing began from all sorts of places, all over his body. He heard pleasurable little giggles on the outer edges of his mind, in the dark creases behind his thoughts. He felt good, better than he'd felt in years. As if he were inside a huge embrace. And he felt as if he had finally reached the right place, his home, his motherland.

she poured herself into him wordlessly. Unable to stop, she emptied her very core into him, and yelled and sobbed and laughed and promised and begged, and explained why and why not, and why they must and why they couldn't, and why there was no life without and how everything is always ripped in the same place and how she curses the moment and is resurrected over and over again endlessly.

Sprofondò in se stessa, cancellando tutto quello che le stava attorno, quel peso opprimente e insopportabile. Fuggì, anche se nessuno se ne accorse.

Se una persona, non importa chi, decide di chiudersi in se stessa, di isolarsi spiritualmente per portare a termine una missione difficile, non importa quale, potrà mai tornare a essere quella di prima? Esattamente come prima?

Alle waren jetzt damit beschäftigt, den Tisch zu decken, und niemand außer ihr bemerkte, was das Baby tat. Es drückte seine Lippen in das Innere von Avrams Hand, blökte ein sanftes und angenehmes Ba-ba-ba und genoss mit seinem ganzen Sein den Klang und das Kitzeln, das es wohl in den Lippen spürte. Auch in Oras Hals und Mund schwebte ein anregendes Summen, ihre Lippen spürten es auch, und in ihr murmelte es stimmlos ba-ba-ba.

Want-- I want-- I want, we want to wake up, to wake out of it, to wake into the light, I want to dip, to bathe my everything in light--

When it came to her, he didn't do any accounting. He really did love her.

from the minute I saw your face, your round, light-filled face, with its beautiful, wise, pure forehead, with its roots of strong, dense hair, which I stupidly believed testified to your strong grip on life, and your broad, large, generous, dancing body – don't you dare erase even one of those adjectives – you were such medicine for me, such medicine for the dry bachelorhood that had closed in on me

What do people see in me on the first impression? ... Is there any imprint left from the love I knew? A rebirth mark?

The grief was always there, the foundational color of her eyes.

c'è chi non si sente soffocare in una stanza dopo cinquant'anni e c'è a chi non basta un'intera nazione.

She had not known how to tell him that his loving whispers were always in her ears, like a story she'd been told, the story of a thing she did not deserve. But he understood. He called those thoughts "the baby teeth of a snake," and swore he would rip them out of her, and pledged to prove to her that the opposite was true. And he didn't even have to explain to her what he meant by "the opposite"; she knew it was the opposite of her.

Everything stops in her and sinks into silence. She drives slowly, foggy pictures painted in her mind. She has to open a window, but how will she withstand the rush of air? She can hardly breathe. She is frozen around a fragment embedded inside her. Only her heart is suddenly full of life, the only part of her that beats in excitement and goes out to Shaul, goes out limping, goes out hunchbacked, with Band-Aids stuck all over it, but goes out.

I would almost plead for a pinprick of salvation, to pierce the burden, the damned skin of words wrapped around me.

Och han är död, jag förstår nästan betydelsen av dessa ljud: Barnet är dött. Jag erkänner att dessa ord rymmer en sanning. Han är död. Han är död. Men hans död, hans död är inte död.

The body is so beautiful, she says with newly found wonder she senses. So good and so precious. Sweet, this body of ours is sweet. It gives us so much goodness and happiness if we're only good to it, if we only listen to it, because it is so wise. It always knows what we want before we know ourselves, and it knows what's really good for us. If we only understand what it's trying to tell us, our precious body, if we only love it as it is, exactly as it is...

I'd feel equaly out of place anywhere

And then my grandfather explained -in his language- that utopias are not for mortals. And that people are like flies, that the stories they are told must be like flypaper. Utopias are gold-covered paper, he said, and flypaper is covered in everything man secretes from his body and his life. Especially the suffering. And our hope is that its measure is the measure of man, and forgiveness.