Goce Smilevski Quotes

You must understand that those who are mad, wherever they are, feel imprisoned; perhaps the first step toward madness is the feeling that the world is a prison. The world, with its laws -- I am thinking not solely of societal laws but of natural ones as well -- is experienced as a prison; perhaps this is what leads to the creation of one's own world, with one's own laws, yet the feeling of imprisonment remains forever.

To be mad is the same as being in danger. You try to call for help, but nothing comes out of your mouth; your throat tenses, your tongue, your lips. Everything is useless. There are people near the person in danger, but their backs are turned, and they do not realize what is happening, because they and the person in danger are looking in different directions, toward different landscapes, toward different skies. Yes, we look toward different skies.

Shadows, with their hint that perhaps we, too, are shadows of some essence that will remain a mystery to us until we return to it, are one of the wonders of daily life that often go unnoticed. Only occasionally will someone peer into the shadow thrown by clouds or by a tree, or into his own shadow, and that moment will seem to hint at some revelation.

We were at an age of innocence when, through touch and sound, taste and smell and sight, once could sense things beyond the surface, when it seemed to use that blood flowed even through inanimate objects. We were at an age when we could not foresee that one day our senses would convince us only of our captivity in space and time, and not lead us to an awareness of somthing beyond. We were at an age of innocence when the soul is still soft clay and does not know that one day it will turn to stone or barren earth; we were at an age when the soul is clay that can easily be warmed by a kindred spirit, when it is possible for two to become one. We were at an age of innocence when a shy look and a secretly expressed longing make our souls erupt under the delicate and tender wrap of our bodies, an age when the soul and the body are still bound into one, an age when excitement does not know it will someday turn into indifference or to a simple urge to satisfy bodily needs, and that when one manages to infuse oneself with passion there is neither the capability nor the desire to turn that moment of pleasure into a brief eternity.

You have not done any evil. You neglected to do a good thing; in our lifetime, all of us neglect to do many good things. And we cannot measure which lapse will allow evil to swallow someone.

Because the I that barely flickers desires so achingly to be loved. Something in the person whose I has been pulled apart tells him -- even when he does not want to acknowledge it -- that only love can save his I, but the fear of love is always stronger than this awareness, and so he shoves that knowledge into oblivion or conquers it with an even greater fear.