01c. 1978 ADWhile we are looking for the antidote or the medicine to cure us, that is, the 'new', which can only be found by plunging deep into the Unknown, we have to go on exploring sex, books, and travel, although we know that they lead us to the abyss, which, as it happens, is the only place where the antidote can be found.Roberto Bolaño / quote ↗
02c. 1978 ADHe had a little single-story house, three bedrooms, a full bathroom and a half bathroom, a combined kitchen-living room-dining room with windows that faced west, a small brick porch where there was a wooden bench worn by the wind that came down from the mountains and the sea, the wind from the north, the wind through the gaps, the wind that smelled like smoke and came from the south. He had books he'd kept for more than twenty-five years. Not many. All of them old. He had books he'd bought in the last ten years, books he didn't mind lending, books that could've been lost or stolen for all he cared. He had books that he sometimes received neatly packaged and with unfamiliar return addresses, books he didn't even open anymore. He had a yard perfect for growing grass and planting flowers, but he didn't know what flowers would do best there--flowers, as opposed to cacti or succulents. There would be time (so he thought) for gardening. He had a wooden gate that needed a coat of paint. He had a monthly salary.Roberto Bolaño / quote ↗
03c. 1978 ADProbably all of us, writers and readers alike, set out into exile, or at least into a certain kind of exile, when we leave childhood behind...The immigrant, the nomad, the traveler, the sleepwalker all exist, but not the exile, since every writer becomes an exile simply by venturing into literature, and every reader becomes an exile simply by opening a book.Roberto Bolaño / quote ↗
04c. 1978 ADI try to find the books that I lost or forgot more than 30 years ago on another continent, with the hope and dedication and bitterness of those who search for their first lost books, books that if found I wouldn't read anyway, because I've already read them over and over, but that I would look at and touch just as the miser strokes the coins under which he's buried...Books are like ghostsRoberto Bolaño / quote ↗
05c. 1978 ADHis novel or book of poems, decent, adequate, arises not from an exercise of style or will, as the poor unfortunate believes, but as the result of an exercise of concealment. There must be many books, many lovely pines, to shield from hungry eyes the book that really matters, the wretched cave of our misfortune, the magic flower of winter!Roberto Bolaño / quote ↗
07c. 1978 ADThat's a pretty story,' said Afanasievna as she let go of Ansky's genitals. 'A pity I'm too old and have seen to much to believe it.'It has nothing to do with belief,' said Ansky, 'it has to do with understanding, and then changing.Roberto Bolaño / quote ↗
10c. 1978 ADFor her, reading was directly linked to pleasure, not to knowledge or enigmas or constructions or verbal labyrinths…Roberto Bolaño / quote ↗
13c. 1978 ADThe pain, or the memory of pain, that here was literally sucked away by something nameless until only a void was left. The knowledge that this question was possible: pain that turns finally into emptiness. The knowledge that the same equation applied to everything, more or less.Roberto Bolaño / quote ↗
14c. 1978 ADReading 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 (oh yes), like looking at the view, like taking a walk on the beach.Roberto Bolaño / quote ↗
15c. 1978 ADYou have to listen to women. You should never ignore a woman's fears.Roberto Bolaño / quote ↗
16c. 1978 ADThe heart of the matter is whether knowing evil (or sin or crime or whatever you want to call it) is random or purposeful. If it's purposeful, we can fight it, it's hard to defeat, but we have a chance, like two boxers in the same weight class, more or less. If it's random, on the other hand, we're fucked, and we'll just have to hope that God, if He exists, has mercy on us. And that's what it all comes down to.Roberto Bolaño / quote ↗
18c. 1978 ADYounger than Morini and Pelletier, Espinoza studied Spanish literature, not German literature, at least for the first two years of his university career, among other sad reasons because he dreamed of being a writer.Roberto Bolaño / quote ↗
19c. 1978 ADYou can woo a girl with a poem, but you can't hold onto her with a poem. Not even with a poetry movement.Roberto Bolaño / quote ↗
20c. 1978 ADA person could be immensely happy reading only him or the writers he loved. But that would be too easy.Roberto Bolaño / quote ↗
21c. 1978 ADI didn't hit her, man, what happened was that Maria was obsessed with the Marquis de Sade and wanted to try the spanking thing," said Luscious Skin. "That's very Maria," said Pancho. "She takes her reading seriously.Roberto Bolaño / quote ↗
23c. 1978 ADAt the bar on the Favoritenstrasse, Julius the policeman talked to us about dignity, evolution, the great Darwin and the great Nietzsche. I translated so that my good friend Ulises could understand what he was saying, although I didn’t understand any of it. The prayer of the bones, said Julius. The yearning for health. The virtue of danger. The tenacity of the forgotten. Bravo, said my good friend Ulises. Bravo, said everyone else. The limits of memory. The wisdom of plants. The eye of parasites. The agility of the earth. The merit of the soldier. The cunning of the giant. The hole of the will. Magnificent, said my good friend Ulises in German. Extraordinary.Roberto Bolaño / quote ↗
24c. 1978 ADWhen you know something, you know it, and when you don't, you'd better learn. And in the meantime, you should keep quiet, or at least speak only when what you say will advance the learning process.Roberto Bolaño / quote ↗
