Quotes from Javier Marías

Es extraño cómo un pensamiento nos llega a veces con tanta nitidez y fuerza que ya no puede mediar nada entre él y su cumplimiento".

The certainty that someone will never come back," the narrator muses of the dead, "never speak again, never take another step…will never look at us or look away. I don't know how we bear it, or how we recover.

Casi todo el mundo se avergüenza de su juventud, no es muy cierto que se añore como se dice, más bien se relega o rehúye y con facilidad o esfuerzo se confina el origen a la esfera de los malos sueños, o de las novelas, o de lo que no ha existido. La juventud se oculta, la juventud es secreta para quienes ya no nos conocen jóvenes.

the books we don't read are full of warnings; we will either never read them or they will arrive too late.

Las personas tal vez consistimos, en suma, tanto en lo que somos como en lo que hemos sido, tanto en lo comprobable y cuantificable y recordable como en lo más incierto, indeciso y difuminado, quizá estamos hechos en igual medida de lo que fue y de lo que pudo ser.

La lengua en la oreja es el beso que más convence, la lengua que indaga y desarma, la que susurra y besa, la que casi obliga".

Todo el mundo obliga a todo el mundo, no tanto a hacer lo que no quiere, sino más bien lo que no sabe si quiere, porque casi nadie sabe lo que no quiere, y menos aún, lo que quiere

Escuchar es lo más peligroso. Es saber, estar al tanto. Los oídos carecen de párpados que puedan cerrarse instintivamente a lo pronunciado, no pueden guardarse de lo que se presiente que va a escucharse, siempre es demasiado tarde".

Everything becomes a story and ends up drifting about in the same sphere, and then it's hard to differentiate between what really happened and what is pure invention. Everything becomes a narrative and sounds fictitious even if it's true.

We don't object to our date of birth, so why object to our date of death, which is just as much a matter of chance.

We do tend to believe things while we're hearing or reading them. Afterwards, it's another matter, when the book is closed and the voice stops speaking.

Fiction has the ability to show us what we don't know and what doesn't happen.

When the abuse is mutual, it dissolves of its own accord, the way it does in quarrels between brothers and sister when they are still young. Or else it accumulates, until the next time

Lo que pasó es lo de menos. Es una novela, y lo que ocurre en ellas da lo mismo y se olvida, una vez terminadas. Lo interesante son las posibilidades e ideas que nos inoculan y traen a través de sus casos imaginarios, se nos quedan con mayor nitidez que los sucesos reales y los tenemos más en cuenta.

The bad thing about terrible misfortunes, the kind that tear us apart and appear to be unendurable, is that those who suffer them believe or almost demand that the world should end right there, and yet the world pays no heed and carries on regardless and even tugs at the sleeve of the person who suffered the misfortune, I mean, it won't just let them depart this world the way a disgruntled spectator might leave the theatre, unless the unfortunate person kills him or herself.

Unlikely truths are useful and life is full of them, far more than the very worst of novels, no novel would ever dare give houseroom to the infinite number of chances and coincidences that can occur in a single lifetime, let alone all those that have already occurred and continue to occur. It's quite shameful the way reality imposes no limits on itself.

She did not want to be moved or bothered or distracted ('No, don't do anything yet, don't do anything, just wait'), nor did she want voices or movement around her, as if she were so full of foreboding that she preferred everything about her to be in a state of utter paralysis and preferred to remain on the situation and posture that at least allowed her to go on living rather than risk any variation, however minimal, that might upset the temporary and precious stability.

There are people who can make us laugh even when they don't intend to, largely because their very presence pleases us, and so it's easy enough to set us off, simply seeing them and being in their company and hearing them is all it takes, even if they're not saying anything very extraordinary or are even deliberately spouting nonsense, which we nevertheless find funny.

Una pareja que depende y vive de sus obstáculos es una pareja que se deshará cuando ya no los haya".

We don't care about humiliating ourselves to ourselves, after all, no one is going to judge us and there are no witnesses.

The ones who most shape the world are those who are not exposed, who can't be seen; unknown, opaque beings about whom almost no one knows anything. Like the hidden man in the story, except that instead of living a passive vegetable existence, they plot and weave webs in the shadows.

y nos dimos besos que nos podíamos haber ahorrado y así yo no tendría que recordarlos.

Perhaps it was his wife who mainly made him laugh, for there are people who can make us laugh even when they don't intend to, largely because their very presence pleases us, and so it's easy enough to set us off, simply seeing them and being in their company and hearing them is all it takes, even if they're not saying anything very extraordinary or are even deliberately spouting nonsense, which we nevertheless find funny.

Tendemos a desejar que ninguém morra e nada termine daquilo que nos acompanha e é nosso amado costume, e não vemos que a única coisa que mantém os costumes intactos é que eles nos sejam suprimidos de repente, sem desvio nem evolução possíveis, sem que nos abandonem nem nós os abandonemos. O que dura deteriora-se e acaba por apodrecer, aborrece-nos, vira-se contra nós, satura-nos, cansa-nos.