Quote

As time goes by, as time goes by, the whip-crack of the years, the precipice of illusions, the ravine that swallows up all human endeavour except the struggle to survive.

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
Humans
Crack
Years
Cracks
Ravine
Time
Survive
Swallows
Illusion
Precipice
Except
Whip
Goes
Whips
Struggle
Endeavour
Human
Illusions

More quotes by Roberto Bolano

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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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In some lost fold of the past, we wanted to be lions and we're no more than castrated cats
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If I were to say what I really think I would be arrested or shut away in a lunatic asylum. Come on, I am sure that it would be the same for everyone.
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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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They could read him, they could study him, they could pick him apart, but they couldn't laugh or be sad with him.
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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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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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Reading is pleasure and happiness to be alive or sadness to be alive and above all it's knowledge and questions.
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The moon is fat and the night air is so pure it seems edible.
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The truth is we never stop being children, terrible children covered in sores and knotty veins and tumors and age spots, but ultimately children, in other words we never stop clinging to life because we are life.
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Poetry is the one thing that isn't contaminated, the one thing that isn't part of the game.
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If you're going to say what you want to say, you're going to hear what you don't want to hear.
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The sky, at sunset, looked like a carnivorous flower.
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Every hundred feet the world changes
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Literature is a vast forest and the masterpieces are the lakes, the towering trees or strange trees, the lovely, eloquent flowers, the hidden caves, but a forest is also made up of ordinary trees, patches of grass, puddles, clinging vines, mushrooms, and little wildflowers.
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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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I decided to tell the truth even if it meant being pointed at.
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Literature + Illness = Illness
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