Quotes About Legacy

At those moments I took it for granted that there was not and never would be a manuscript of Lila's. I had always overestimated her, nothing memorable would emerge from her - something that reassured me and yet truly upset me. I loved Lila. I wanted her to last. But I wanted it to be I who made her last. I thought it was my task. I was convinced that she herself, as a girl, had assigned it to me.

here is Vesuvius which reminds you every day that the greatest undertaking of powerful men, the most splendid work, can be reduced to nothing in a few seconds by the fire, and the earthquake, and the ash, and the sea.

Questo distratto inseminare dei maschi, storditi dal piacere. Ci fecondano sopraffatti dal loro orgasmo. Si affacciano dentro di noi e si ritraggono lasciandoci, celato nella carne, il loro fantasma come un oggetto smarrito. Albertino era figlio della volontà, dell'attenzione? O anche lui era in braccio a questa donna-madre senza che Nino sentisse di averci a che fare?

Should I restrain this shadow—my mother, all our female ancestors—or should I let her go?

Será possível que os pais nunca morram, que fiquem a incubar dentro de cada filho,inevitavelmente?

How foolish to think you can tell your children about yourself before they're at least fifty. To ask to be seen by them as a person and not as a function. To say : I am your history, you begin from me, listen to me, it could be useful to you.

Estoy y estuve en muchos ojos. Yo sólo soy memoria y la memoria que de mí se tenga.

It is difficult to inherit the histories of those who raise us when they choose to hide them.

History is the hidden map of who, where and how we are today.

but just as you become impregnated with someone, even after that someone is gone, that is how Lilus remained

In waking life (just now), if I read his face like a card there is a reversal of fortunes, for I am the body he did not help, and when a body dies we can no longer study the hynger paths so that when I speak of him, instead of saying "father", I must say "your father" or "this man I knew" or "this dead man's eyebrow." What is a dead man? What does a dead man?

When we grow old, there can only be one regret — not to have given enough of ourselves.

Every day, a piece of music, a short story, or a poem dies because its existence is no longer justified in our time. And things that were once considered immortal have become mortal again, no one knows them anymore. Even though they deserve to survive.

People who cannot find their way out of history are lost, and so are their nations.

Det var slutet för den unge, så gick Kullervo ur tiden, denne olycksfödde yngling, för att aldrig återkomma. /.../ Eftervärld, låt aldrig barnet uppfostras av onda viljor, vyssjas av förvända mänskor, vaggas fel av obekanta. Den som en gång fostrats galet, vyssjas bakvänt, vaggas illa, han blir aldrig som han borde,

I decided to devote my life to telling the story because I felt that having survived I owe something to the dead. and anyone who does not remember betrays them again.

Others have been here before me, and I walk in their footsteps. The books I have read were composed by generations of fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, teachers and disciples. I am the sum total of their experiences, their quests. And so are you.

No one may speak for the dead, no one may interpret their mutilated dreams and visions.

Memory feeds a culture, nourishes hope and makes a human, human.

That is my major preoccupation --memory, the kingdom of memory. I want to protect and enrich that kingdom, glorify that kingdom and serve it.

There is divine beauty in learning, just as there is human beauty in tolerance. To learn means to accept the postulate that life did not begin at my birth. Others have been here before me, and I walk in their footsteps. The books I have read were composed by generations of fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, teachers and disciples. I am the sum total of their experiences, their quests. And so are you.

To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.

For the dead and the living, we must bear witness.

There is divine beauty in learning... To learn means to accept the postulate that life did not begin at my birth. Others have been here before me, and I walk in their footsteps. The books I have read were composed by generations of fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, teachers and disciples. I am the sum total of their experiences, their quests. And so are you.