Quotes About Discovery

In the same way that there's a partner for every person, there's a place. All you have to do is find your own among the billions that belong to other people, you have to be awake, you have to choose.

Un llibre veritable sempre indica algun camí nou que condueix enllà d'ell mateix.

To peer into the mass of wastepaper and find the spine and boards of a rare book has always been a special treat for me. Instead of going after it on the spot, I'll take a piece of steel wool and give the shaft a good rub, then have another look at the paper and check whether I have the strength to pull out the book and open it, and not until I decide I do have the strength will I pick it up, and even then it shakes in my hands like a bride's bouquet at the altar.

But just as a beautiful fish will occasionally sparkle in the waters of a polluted river that runs through a stretch of factories, so in the flow of old paper the spine of a rare book will occasionally shine forth, and if for a moment I turn away, dazzled, I always turn back in time to rescue it.

The stories in this collection represent the early results of Hrabal's discovery of what he came to call "total realism," the realization that the ordinary events of everyday life can be as magical as surrealism, and that straightforward accounts of people at work and in conversation can reveal more about who they are and the world they live in than attempts to portray their inner lives.

Not until later did he realise he had never before seen her anywhere, yet it was somehow as if he had been awaiting her for a long time

Stories hang from the trees, hive under the coffee table, gather like glass on the corners of the road. To pick them up one needs simply to focus one's eye and keep a steady hand. Writing focuses the eye; writing develops the steadiness of one's hand.

We dare to jump so we can see something new. And sometimes we do it to recover a sense of what we once had.

Some people unpack when they first arrive in a city. Me, I look for Chinatown.

There's a point where you find yourself tiptoeing as an artist, and then you know that you're in the wrong place.

I'm lost, I'll probably always be lost.

In the ancient-wisdom literature known as the book of Ecclesiastes, written several hundred years BC, there is a wanderer I borrowed from, a sojourner who discovers that sex, drugs, money, fame … are apparently not the promised land. Instead, says the writer—maybe Solomon—these are the vanities of vanities. The best thing in life, he discovers, is to enjoy your work. To do what you love. The promised land will always be somewhere else. I think I can grasp this.

I'd given myself a license to look back, to lift up stones under which I knew lay creepy-crawlies.

I'm drawn to conversation because in the best kind you don't know where you're going, only that you will get somewhere good.

The greatest songwriting is never conclusive, but the search for conclusion

Education is not what a person is able to hold in his head, so much as it is what a person is able to find.I

While the Growing went on, this god of their market-place was their true god, their familiar and spirit-control. They did not know that they were his helplessly obedient slaves, nor could they ever hope to realize their serfdom (as the first step to becoming free men) until they should make the strange and hard discovery that matter should serve man's spirit. (p.211)

No existe ciencia acabada, la ciencia vive superando errores y no estableciendo verdades.

Literature is the art of discovering something extraordinary about ordinary people, and saying with ordinary words something extraordinary.

Qu'est-ce que vous faites dans la vie, vous? – J'apprends des choses, dit Colin. Et j'aime Chloé.

New situations inspire new thoughts. Here is the benefit of travelling, much more than in mere sight-seeing. We lose ourselves in the streets of our own city, and go abroad to find ourselves.

She wasn't tracking down her father to learn more about him. She was tracking him down to learn more about herself.

There is so much stuff that has yet to be invented. There's so much new that's going to happen. People don't have any idea yet how impactful the Internet is going to be and that this is still Day 1 in such a big way. Jeff Bezos

Every interesting thing I've ever done, every important thing I've ever done, every beneficial thing I've ever done, has been through a cascade of experiments and mistakes and failures,