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Poetry and prison have always been neighbors.

Roberto Bolano

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Roberto Bolano
Age: 50 †
Born: 1953
Born: April 28
Died: 2003
Died: July 16
Journalist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Poet
Writer
Santiago
Chile
Ay
Neighbors
Neighbor
Prison
Poetry
Always

More quotes by Roberto Bolano

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In some lost fold of the past, we wanted to be lions and we're no more than castrated cats
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Being alone makes us stronger. That’s the honest truth. But it’s cold comfort, since even if I wanted company no one will come near me anymore.
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I decided to tell the truth even if it meant being pointed at.
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Nothing happened today. And if anything did, I’d rather not talk about it, because I didn’t understand it.
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No one pays attention to these killings, but the secret of the world is hidden in them.
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Then he went out without touching anything and put his arm around Ingeborg, and like that, with their arms around each other, they returned to the village while the whole past of the universe fell on their heads.
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The American mirror, said the voice, the sad American mirror of wealth and poverty and constant useless metamorphosis, the mirror that sails and whose sails are pain.
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Every hundred feet the world changes
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Literature + Illness = Illness
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The secret story is the one we'll never know, although we're living it from day to day, thinking we're alive, thinking we've got it all under control and the stuff we overlook doesn't matter.
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Death, in the Eastern tradition, was only a passage. What wasn't clear ... was toward what place, what reality, that passage led.
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The world is alive and no living thing has any remedy. That is our fortune.
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Coincidence obeys no laws and if it does we don't know what they are. Coincidence, if you'll permit me the simile, is like the manifestation of God at every moment on our planet. A senseless God making senseless gestures at his senseless creatures. In that hurricane, in that osseous implosion, we find communion.
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When you die of sorrow it's as if you've broken all the bones in your body, bruised yourself all over, cracked your skull. That's sorrow.
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So everything lets us down, including curiosity and honesty and what we love best. Yes, said the voice, but cheer up, it's fun in the end.
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Reading is like thinking, like praying, like talking to a friend, like expressing your ideas, like listening to other people's ideas, like listening to music, like looking at the view, like taking a walk on the beach.
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…I realized my happiness was artificial. I felt happy because I saw the others were happy and because I knew I should feel happy, but I wasn't really happy.
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You have to know how to look even if you don't know what you're looking for.
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Reading is more important than writing.
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When people read his books they have an uncontrollable desire to hang the author in the town square. I can’t think of a higher honor for a writer.
Roberto Bolano