quote · Legacy record
Oh, but to reach silence, what a huge effort of voice. My voice is the way I go seek reality; reality prior to my language exists as an unthinkable thought, but I was and am fatefully impelled to have to know what thought thinks. Reality precedes the voice that seeks it, but like the earth precedes the tree, but like the world precedes the man, but like the sea precedes the view of the sea, life precedes love, bodily matter precedes the body, and one day in its turn language shall have preceded possession of silence. - Clarice Lispector, The Passion According to G.H.
Oh, but to reach silence, what a huge effort of voice. My voice is the way I go seek reality; reality prior to my language exists as an unthinkable thought, but I was and am fatefully impelled to have to know what thought thinks. Reality precedes the voice that seeks it, but like the earth precedes the tree, but like the world precedes the man, but like the sea precedes the view of the sea, life precedes love, bodily matter precedes the body, and one day in its turn language shall have preceded possession of silence. - Clarice Lispector, The Passion According to G.H.
Approximate author period: c. 1948 AD · modern
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- Author or tradition
- Clarice Lispector
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
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- Approximate author period: c. 1948 AD · modern
Approximate author-period anchor from life dates 1920 to 1977; Wikidata Q235955, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q235955 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
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Supplied reference C; CSV row 346308; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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