“With determination, it is possible to block out the negative things and enjoy the positive ones, despite the cons. Most importantly, it is possible to dance through everything pernicious.”
“There is now a distance, pressing quite persistent, May be only inches apart, but as if an artery is blocked. There now seem some secrets, a word which was earlier so needless. May be they now laugh so less, and even in summers, the air between them feels dense. Who connects? Who neglects? Barely matters when you are no more friends.”
“The stares were annoying, but I knew they didn’t mean any harm. So, every morning, smiling at them became part of my routine, too.”
“One did not fully exist without the other.”
“We all used to try so hard to fit in. We wanted to look exactly alike, do all the same things, practically be the same person, but when we weren t looking that all changed....what the summer actually brought was independence from each other.”
“Habíamos crecido demasiado separadas, y nuestras heridas del pasado eran demasiado grandes. La verdadera amistad ya no era una opción. Pero no siento melancolía acerca de ello, me siento aliviada. Hay cierto respeto y buenos deseos entre nosotras. Y eso no es cualquier cosa.”
“I ll put it on my table where I keep my drawings, Hassan said. His saying that made me kind of sad. Sad for who Hassan was, where he lived. For how he d accepted the fact that he d grow old in that mud shack in the yard, the way his father had.”
“If everyone in New York took sides over these petty, insignificant arguments, no one would have any friends at all.”
“Damn! What did Ansermet, that most faithful friend, know about Stravinsky s poverty of heart? What did he, that most devoted friend, know about Stravinsky s capacity to love? And where did he get his utter certainty that the heart is ethically superior to the brain? Are not vile acts committed as often with the heart s help as without it? Can t fanatics, with their bloody hands, boast of a high degree of affective activity ? Will we ever be done with this imbecile sentimental Inquisition, the heart s Reign of Terror?”
“Brod was a brilliant intellectual with exceptional energy; a generous man willing to do battle for others; his attachment to Kafka was warm and disinterested. The only problem was his artistic orientation: a man of ideas, he knew nothing of the passion for form; his novels (he wrote twenty of them) are sadly conventional; and above all: he understood nothing at all about modern art. Why, despite all this, was Kafka so fond of him? What about you-do you stop being fond of your best friend because he has a compulsion to write bad verse?”
“A spiritual connection with someone lasts forever, even when physical presence fades.”
“A dynamic person can easily grow and become a civil human when they start to live independently.”
“It s by stooping that fingers create a fist, and by standing tall that they give us open palms.”
“Conversations between friends are the craziest and funniest of all.”
“Friends might share clothes and chocolate, but they must share books. Just like you share the same stars, share the same books and you ll never be apart.”
“Life isn’t measured by the years/days/hours/minutes/seconds you live. Nor is it gauged neither by your accomplishments or wealth nor even by how many friends or good deeds. Life is solely valued by the people you have made feel good about themselves… for those are the ones that pass it on!”
“There must be always wine and fellowship or we are truly lost.”