Gabrijela Kis Quotes

Even a stone would talk if you broke its teeth. ~ Danilo Kis

I start writing when I overcome my disgust with literature. ~ Danilo Kis

The past was a minefield about which few maps seemed to agree. And why should that surprise me? It's a big place.
p. 30 ~ Danilo Kis

During that year by the railroad embankment, at the time of my father's complete disaster, distance meant for us not only some faraway lyrical splendor but also the exceedingly utilitarian idea of running away, the deliverance from fear and hunger. ~ Danilo Kis

History is written by the victors. Legends are woven by the people. Writers fantasize. Only death is certain.

"To Die for One's Country is Glorious," p. 131 ~ Danilo Kis

I don't want to make a tea set. I want to make crystal, as the wonderful Billy Wiseass would put it. That poor bastard has it good: he's never experienced love. It'll be easy for him to write a romance novel. ~ Danilo Kis

Terribly thwarted in the autumn and winter, deadened in summer, in the spring his egoism would awaken his once inadequately defined revolt against world order and people, and this rebelliousness, this surplus energy, this restlessness of mind and blood would bring him back to life. ~ Danilo Kis

Witnessing the blind fury of this mob and seeing them kill before my eyes the Jews who refused to be converted (some out of faith, and others from that pride which can sometimes be perilous), I answered that I would rather be converted than killed, since, in spite of everything, the temporary agony of being is more valuable than the ultimate void of nothingness. ~ Danilo Kis

It is hard to lift up your own misfortune. To be at once the viewer and the viewed. To be both above and below. The one below is a spot, a shadow ... To consider your own person in the light of eternity (read: in the light of death). To rise into the air. The world from a bird's-eye view. ~ Danilo Kis

Since childhood, I was afflicted with a sick hypersensitivity, and my imagination quickly turned everything into a memory, too quickly: sometimes one day was enough, or an interval of a few hours, or a routine change of place, for an everyday event with a lyrical value that I did not sense at the time, to become suddenly adorned with a radiant echo, the echo ordinarily reserved only for those memories which have been standing for many years in the powerful fixative of lyrical oblivion. ~ Danilo Kis

I would have liked to catch hold of sleep at least once, just as I had been resolved to catch hold of death one day, to catch hold of the wings of the angel of sleep when it came for me, to grab it with two fingers like a butterfly after sneaking up on it from behind. [ ... ] My sleep game was practice for the grand struggle with death. ~ Danilo Kis

I assigned myself the role of Lot's wife, because her behavior seemed the most human, the most sinful, and therefore closest to mine. Consumed by curiosity, I was drawn to the magnificent, horrible sight of fire and disaster as houses collapsed and towers folded like dominoes amidst human wailing that rose to the sky. My curiosity, brought to an explosive point by the divine warning, was suddenly transformed into my sole trait, overwhelming reason and the feeling of fear, turning me into a weakling of a woman, unable to resist my inquisitiveness, and I would turn around abruptly with my whole body as if rotated by the centrifugal force of my curiosity, which had passed through me like a sword. ~ Danilo Kis

I don't like the looks of it,' said the King: 'however, it may kis my hand, if it likes.'
'I'd rather not,' the Cat remarked. ~ Lewis Carroll

I was looking through half-open eyes at the sky, like the first man, and thinking about how - there you are - my uncle had died, about how they would now be burying him, about how I would never meet him. I stood petrified, thinking that one day I too would die. At the same time I was horror-stricken to realize that my mother would also die. All of this came rushing upon me in a flash of a peculiar violet color, in a twinkling, and the sudden activity in my intestines and in my heart told me that what had seemed at first just a foreboding was indeed the truth. This experience made me realize, without any circumlocution, that I would die one day, and so would my mother, and my sister Anna. I couldn't imagine how one day my hand would die, how my eyes would die. Looking over my hand, I caught this thought on my palm, connected to my body, indivisible from it. ~ Danilo Kis

There are people," my father continued, "who are born to be unhappy and to make others unhappy, who are the victims of celestial intrigues incomprehensible to us, guinea pigs for the celestial machinery, rebels allotted the part of a rebel yet born - by the cruel logic of the celestial comedy - with their wings clipped. They are titans without the power of titans, dwarf-titans whose only greatness was given them in the form of a rigid dose of sensitivity that dissolves their trifling strength like alcohol. They follow their star, their sick sensibility, borne along by titanic plans and intentions, but then break like waves against the rocky banks of triviality. The height of the cruelty allotted them in lucidity, that awareness of their own limitations, that sick capacity for dissociation. I look at myself in the role forced on me by the heavens and by fate, conscious of my role at all times yet at the same time unable to resist it with the force of logic or will. ~ Danilo Kis

Go litel bok, go, litel myn tragedye,
Ther God thi makere yet, er that he dye,
So sende myght to make in som comedye!
But litel book, no makyng thow n'envie,
But subgit be to alle poesye;
And kis the steppes where as thow seest pace
Virgile, Ovide, Omer, Lucan, and Stace. ~ Geoffrey Chaucer

At first my father's job was clearing ruins. He had filed a sharp protest, however, justifying his disability over ten pages of closely spaced handwriting, buttressed by statements from witnesses and discharge papers from clinics for nervous diseases. His arguments were irrefutable, particularly if we take into consideration--aside from the actual facts--his polemical tone and his brilliant style. 'I hereby state for the attention of the esteemed Commissarist,' he wrote in his appeal, 'in connection with Item A-2, in which I took the liberty of citing the causes of my total incapacity and proving--if in a very sensible fashion--my abnormality as well as my complete mental and physical worthlessness, the worthlessness of a neurotic and alcoholic incapable of taking care of his family or himself, I hereby state, therefore, with a view to the most specific information possible on this matter, although each and every one of the aforementioned matters is in itself a physical amputation, I am stating that I am also flat-footed, a certificate to which effect I am appending from the draft board at Zalaegerszeg, by which I am exempt from military service by virtue of 100 percent flat-footedness. . . ~ Danilo Kis

I continued with heavy sobs."Please Cassandra.Wake up,sweetheart.I'll do anything.I need you.You're all I've ever needed.All I've ever wanted."

I pulled away and stroked my finger across her chin.She was everything, and for the first time in my life, I knew I would never want anyone elese.
I caved and placed a small kis on her forehead.My lips needed to feel her just once more. I didn't deserve it but I wasn't ready to be a gentleman now. Pulling back, I looked down at her, my heart swelling in my chest.
"I love you," I murmured,my head resting next to her ear. ~ Angela Graham

Liesel continued the examination. She moved around him and shrugged. "Not bad."
Not bad!" I look better than just not bad."
The shoes let you down. And your face."
Rudy placed the lantern on the counter and came toward her in mock-anger, and Liesel had to admit that a nervousness started gripping her. It was with both relief and disappointment that she watched him trip and fall on the disgraced mannequin.
On the floor, Rudy laughed.
Then he closed his eyes, clenching them hard.
Liesel rushed over.
She crouched above him.
Kis him, Liesel, kiss him.
Are you all right, Rudy? Rudy?"
I miss him," said the boy, sideways, across the floor.
Frohe Weihnachten," Liesel replied. She helped him up, straightening the suit. "Merry Christmas. ~ Markus Zusak

Bronwyn: Well, I'd like to try. I f you want to. Not because we're thrown together in this weird situation and I think you're hot, altough I do. But because you're smart, and funny, and you do the right thing more often than you give youerself credit for. I like your horrible taste in movies and the way you never sugarcoat anything and the fact that you have an actual lizard. I'd be proud to be your girlfriend, even in a nonoffical capacity while we're, you know, being investigated for murder. Plus, I can't go more than a few minutes without wanting to kis you, so - there's that.

Nate: You're doing better than me. I never stop thinking about kissing you. ~ Karen M. McManus

A long time ago Ian had told her he was half in love with her, yet now that they were betrothed he'd never spoken a word of it, had not even pretended. She wasn't certain of his motives or his feelings; she wasn't certain of her own, either. All she really knew was that the sight of his hard, handsome face with its chiseled features, and hold amber eyes never failed to make her entire being feel tense and alive. She knew he liked to kis her, and that she very much liked being kissed by him. Added to his other attractions was something else that drew her inexorably to him: From their very first meeting, Elizabeth had sensed that beneath his bland sophistication and rugged virility Ian Thornton had a depth that most people lacked. "It's so hard to know," she whispered, "how I ought to feel or what I ought to think. And I have the worst feeling it's not going to matter what I know or what I think," she added almost sadly, "because I am going to love him." She opened her eyes and looked at Alex. "It's happening, and I cannot stop it. It was happening two years ago, and I couldn't stop it then, either. So you see," she added with a sad little smile, "it would be so much nicer for me if you could love him just a little, too."
Alex reached across the table and took Elizabeth's hands in hers. "If you love him, then he must be the very best of men. I shall henceforth make it a point to see all his best qualities!" Alex hesitated, and then she hazarded the question: "Elizabeth, do ~ Judith McNaught