Quotes About Contemplation

And I no longer ask for all the solitude in the world, but for time.

While he was waiting, leaning on the counter at a coffee place, he remembered the dream he'd had the night before about Antonio Jones, who had been dead for several years now. As before, he asked himself what Jones could have died of, and the one answer that occurred to him was old age. One day, walking down some street in Brooklyn, Antonio Jones had felt tired, sat down on the sidewalk, and a second later stopped existing.

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

There are silences made just for us.

He] turned his back on the window, not knowing why he had gone to it, not knowing what he hoped to see, and just at that moment, when there was no one at the window any more and only a little lamp of colored glass at the back of the room flickering, it appeared.

Who was the first human being to look out a window?

Meanwhile I chain-smoked Bali cigarettes, looking at the window at the highway and thinking about the disaster that was my life.

Everything's over, I thought. I felt rested, I'm home, I have lots to do. When I sat up in bed, though, all I did was start to cry like a fool, for no apparent reason.

Durante un rato contemplé la máquina de escribir, el libro en donde estaban anotadas las visitas, un recipiente de madera lleno de lápices, clips y gomas de borrar que parecían estar en perfecto orden, lo que me pareció imposible pues nadie en su sano juicio ordena clips (lápices y gomas, sí, pero no clips) [...]

Sometimes I get the sense that it's all "internal"... Maybe that's why I lived alone and did nothing for three years ... (The man hardly ever washed, he didn't need a typewriter, all he had to do was sit in that shabby armchair for things to flee of their own accord)

said a hasty prayer and headed for a wooden bench, there to recover a composure more in keeping with what I was, or what at the time I considered myself to be. Our

I preferred not to respond. (Although several replies occurred to me.)

dizzied, thrilled, depressed by remembering...

I ate sitting in the kitchen in silence, thinking about future. I saw tornadoes, hurricanes, tidal waves, fire. Then I washed the frying pan, plate and silverware, brushed away the crumbs and unbolted the door to the courtyard. Before I left, I turned out the light.

The only thing an intellectual can do is watch things blow up, from a safe distance, of course.

Adelante, dije, pero de inmediato añadí: no, espera, déjame respirar, que era como decir déjame mirar mi cuarto, mi casa, la cara de mis padres por última vez.

Leer es como pensar, como rezar, como hablar con un amigo, como exponer tus ideas, como escuchar las ideas de los otros, como escuchar música (sí, sí), como contemplar un paisaje, como salir a dar un paseo por la playa.

A veces me acuerdo de Laura Damián. No mucho, unas cuatro o cinco veces por día.

Y después de coger a mi general le gustaba salir al patio a fumarse su cigarro y a pensar en la tristeza poscoito, en la pinche tristeza de la carne, en todos los libros que no había leído.

prefiero el ritual de la nada.

Mentre i messicani mangiavano carne alla griglia e patatine fritte, Fate si mise a pensare al tatuaggio di García. Confrontò poi la solitudine di quel rancho con la solitudine della casa di sua madre. Pensò alle sue ceneri che erano ancora là. Pensò alla vicina morta. Pensò al quartiere di Barry Seaman. E tutto quello che la sua memoria andava illuminando mentre i messicani mangiavano gli parve desolato.

That something merely happens is pointless. But that something happens and a watching eye gathers it into itself is everything.

One operates on the mind with the mind. What else is there, after all?

Maybe if I had to boil it down to one easy sentence, it would be this: I believe in evolution, and I believe in God. I just haven't worked out the details yet.