Quote

Death, in the Eastern tradition, was only a passage. What wasn't clear ... was toward what place, what reality, that passage led.

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
Passages
Tradition
Toward
Wasn
Clear
Death
Place
Passage
Reality
Eastern

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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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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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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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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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…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 run risks. That's the plain truth. You run risks and, even in the most unlikely places, you are subject to destiny's whims.
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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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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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No one pays attention to these killings, but the secret of the world is hidden in them.
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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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We never stop reading, although every book comes to an end, just as we never stop living, although death is certain.
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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.
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Metaphors are our way of losing ourselves in semblances or treading water in a sea of seeming.
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Nothing good ever comes of love. What comes of love is always something better
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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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We all have to die a bit every now and then and usually it's so gradual that we end up more alive than ever. Infinitely old and infinitely alive.
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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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The world is alive and no living thing has any remedy. That is our fortune.
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Reading is more important than writing.
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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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