Tokarczuk Quotes

I believe, unswervingly, agonizingly, that it is in freaks that Being breaks through to the surface and reveals its true nature. ~ Olga Tokarczuk

My Ailments appear treacherously; I never know when they're coming. And then something happens inside my body, my bones begin to ache. It's an unpleasant ache, sickening – that's the word I'd use. It continues incessantly, it doesn't stop for hours, sometimes days on end. There's no hiding from this pain, there are no pills or injections for it. It must hurt, just as a river must flow and fire must burn. It spitefully reminds me that I consist of physical particles, which are slipping away by the second. Perhaps one could get used to it? Learn to live with it, just as people live in the cities of Auschwitz or Hiroshima, without ever thinking about what happened there in the past. They simply live their lives. ~ Olga Tokarczuk

Here Mankind is not governed by the rules of reason, stupid and strict, but by the heart and intuition. The people do not indulge in idle chatter, parading what they know, but create remarkable things by applying their imagination. The state ceases to impose the shackles of daily oppression, but helps people to realize their hopes and dreams. And Man is not just a cog in the system, not just playing a role, but a free Creature. That's what was passing through my mind, making my bed-rest almost a pleasure.

Sometimes I think that only the sick are truly healthy. ~ Olga Tokarczuk

The planet's witnessing the appearance of a new creature now, ones that have already conquered all continents and almost every ecological niche. They travel in packs and are anemophilous, covering large distances without difficulty.
Now I see them from the window of the bus, these airborne anemones, whole packs of them, roaming the desert. Individual specimens cling on tight to brittle little desert plants, fluttering noisily-perhaps this is the way they communicate.
The experts say these plastic bags open up a whole new chapter of earthly existence, breaking nature's age-old habits. They're made up of their surfaces exclusively, empty on the inside, and this historic forgoing of all content unexpectedly affords them great evolutionary benefits. ~ Olga Tokarczuk

The best place for this kind of training is Holland where people, convinced of their utter innocence, do not use curtains. After dusk the windows turn into little stages on which actors act out their evenings. Sequences of images bathed in yellow, warm light are the individual acts of the same production entitled 'Life'. Dutch painting. Moving lives. ~ Olga Tokarczuk

The prison is not outside, but inside each of us. Perhaps we simply don't know how to live without it. ~ Olga Tokarczuk

the truest argument was an old one - the earth is round, let us not be too attached, then, to directions. ~ Olga Tokarczuk

Drawing is never reproducing - in order to see, you have to know how to look, and you have to know what you're looking at. ~ Olga Tokarczuk

Fluidity, mobility, illusoriness -- these are precisely the qualities that make us civilised. Barbarians don't travel. They simply go to destinations or conduct raids. ~ Olga Tokarczuk

There is too much world, so it's better to concentrate on particulars, rather than the whole. ~ Olga Tokarczuk

He was a man of very few words, and as it was impossible to talk, one had to keep silent. It's hard work talking to some people, most often males. I have a Theory about it. With age, many men come down with testosterone autism, the symptoms of which are a gradual decline in social intelligence and capacity for interpersonal communication, as well as a reduced ability to formulate thoughts. The Person beset by this Ailment becomes taciturn and appears to be lost in contemplation. He develops an interest in various Tools and machinery, and he's drawn to the Second World War and the biographies of famous people, mainly politicians and villains. His capacity to read novels almost entirely vanishes; testosterone autism disturbs the character's psychological understanding. ~ Olga Tokarczuk

Everything will pass. The wise Man knows this from the start, and has no regrets. ~ Olga Tokarczuk

Other people's life stories are not a topic for debate. One should hear them out, and reciprocate in the same coin. ~ Olga Tokarczuk

A man's free to do what he wants with his life, until he falls foul of the banks. ~ Olga Tokarczuk

I see everything as if in a dark mirror, as if through smoked glass. I view the world in the same way as others look at the Sun in eclipse. Thus I see the Earth in eclipse. I see us moving about blindly in eternal Gloom, like the May bugs trapped in a box by a cruel child. It's easy to harm and injure us, to smash up our intricately assembled, bizarre existence. I interpret everything as abnormal, terrible and threatening. I see nothing but Catastrophes. But as the Fall is the beginning, can we possibly fall even lower? ~ Olga Tokarczuk

To my mind, Death should be followed by the annihilation of matter. That would be the best solution for the body. Like this, annihilated bodies would go straight back into the black holes whence they came. The Souls would travel at the speed of light into the light. If such a thing as the Soul exists. ~ Olga Tokarczuk

That's too much. You can't want all those things,' he said. 'Oh yes I can! And I'm the one to define what I can want,' I shouted furiously ~ Olga Tokarczuk

Then you realize: night gives the world back its natural, original appearance, without suger-coating it; day is a flight of fancy, light a slight exception, an oversight, a disruption of the order. The world in fact is dark, almost black. Motionless and cold. ~ Olga Tokarczuk

Anyone who has ever tried to write a novel knows what an arduous task it is, undoubtedly one of the worst ways of occupying oneself. You have to remain within yourself all the time, in solitary confinement. It's a controlled psychosis, an obsessive paranoia manacled to work completely lacking in the feather pens and bustles and Venetian masks we would ordinarily associate with it, clothed instead in a butcher's apron and rubber boots, eviscerating knife in hand. You can only barely see from that writerly cellar the feet of passers-by, hear the rapping of their heels. Every so often someone stops and bends down and glances in through the window, and then you get a glimpse of a human face, maybe even exchange a few words. But ultimately the mind is so occupied with its own act, a play staged by the self ofr the self in a hasty, makeshift cabinet of curiosities peopled by author and character, narrator and reader, the person describing and the person described, that feet, shoes, heels, and faces become, sooner or later, mere components of that act. ~ Olga Tokarczuk

Move. Get going. Blessed is he who leaves. ~ Olga Tokarczuk

It's clear that the largest things are contained in the smallest. There can be no doubt about it. At this very moment, as I write, there's a planetary configuration on the table, the entire Cosmos if you like: a thermometer, a coin, an aluminum spoon and a porcelain cup. A key, a cell phone, a piece of paper and a pen. And one of my gray hairs, whose atoms preserve the memory of the origins of life, of the cosmic Catastrophe that gave the world its beginning. ~ Olga Tokarczuk

There are two kinds of learning, from the inside and from the outside. The first is regarded as the best, or even the only kind. And so people learn through distant journeys, watching, reading, universities and lectures - they learn from what is happening outside them. Man is a stupid creature who has to learn. So he tacks knowledge onto himself, he gathers it like a bee, gaining more and more of it, putting it to use and processing it. But the thing inside that is "stupid" and needs learning doesn't change. ~ Olga Tokarczuk

Being healthy is an insecure state and does not bode well. It's better to be ill in a quiet way, then at least we know what we're going to die of. ~ Olga Tokarczuk

The human psyche evolved in order to defend itself against seeing the truth. To prevent us from catching sight of the mechanism. The psyche is our defense system - it makes sure we'll never understand what's going on around us. Its main task is to filter information, even though the capabilities of our brains are enormous. For it would be impossible for us to carry the weight of this knowledge. Because every tiny particle of the world is made of suffering. ~ Olga Tokarczuk

The best conversations are with yourself. At least there's no risk of a misunderstanding. ~ Olga Tokarczuk

But it also crossed my mind that in spite of all, in spite of our fragility and ignorance, we have an incredible advantage over the stars – it is for us that time works, giving us a major opportunity to transform the suffering, aching world into a happy and peaceful one. ~ Olga Tokarczuk

He said that death marks places like a dog marking its territory. Some people can sense it right away, while others simply start to feel uncomfortable after a time. Every stay in any place betrays the quiet ubiquitousness of the dead. As he said:
'At first you always see what's alive and vibrant. You're delighted by nature, by the local church painted in different colours, by the smells and all that. But the longer you're in a place, the more the charm of those things fades. You wonder who lived here before you came to this home and this room, whose things these are, who scratched the wall above the bed and what tree the sills were cut from. Whose hands built the elaborately decorated fireplace, paved the courtyard? And where are they now? In what form? Whose idea led to these paths around the pond and who had the idea of planting a willow out the window? All the houses, avenues, parks, gardens and streets are permeated with the deaths of others. Once you start feeling this, something starts to pull you elsewhere, you start to think it's time to move on.'
He added that when we are in motion, there's no time for such idle meditations. Which is why to people on trips everything seems new and clean, virginal, and, in some sense, immortal. ~ Olga Tokarczuk

Nothing is innocent, and nothing is insignificant, it's all a big endless puzzle. ~ Olga Tokarczuk

When you're traveling you need to take care of yourself to get by, you have to keep an eye on yourself and your place in the world. It means concentrating on yourself, thinking about yourself and looking after yourself. So when you travel all you really encounter is yourself, as if that were the whole point of it. When you're at home you simply are, you don't have to struggle with anything or achieve anything. You don't have to worry about the railways connections, and timetables, you don't need to experience any thrills or disappointments. You can put yourself to one side - and that's when you see the most. ~ Olga Tokarczuk

Boros's presence reminded me what it's like to live with someone. And how very awkward it is. How much it diverts you from your own thoughts and distracts you. How another Person starts to irritate you without actually doing anything annoying, but simply by being there. Each morning when he went off to the forest, I blessed my glorious solitude. How do people manage to spend decades living together in a small space? I wondered. How can they possibly sleep in the same bed together, breathing on and jostling each other accidentally in their sleep? I'm not saying it hasn't happened to me too. For some time I shared my bed with a Catholic, and nothing good came of it. ~ Olga Tokarczuk

They are more than travel hubs: this is a special category of city-state, with a stable location, but citizens in flux.They are airport-republics...(a)n example of an extroverted system,where the constitution is spelled out on every ticket, and where one's boarding pass is one's only identification as a citizen. ~ Olga Tokarczuk

Your memory creates postcard images, but it doesn't really comprehend the world at all. That's why a landscape is so affected by the mood of the person looking at it. In it a person sees his own inner, transitory moments. Wherever he looks, he sees nothing but himself. ~ Olga Tokarczuk

I had my Theory about interjections of this kind: ever single Person has their own expression which he or she overuses. Or uses incorrectly. These words or phrases are the key to their intellect. Mr. "Apparently," Mr. "Generally," Mrs. "Probably," Mr. "Fucking," Mrs. "Don't You Think?," Mr. "As If,". The President was Mr. "In Truth." Of course there are entire fashions for some words, just like the ones that for some crazy reason suddenly make everyone going about in identical shoes or clothes - people just as suddenly start using one particular word or phrase. Recently the word, "generally" was fashionable, but now "actually" is out in front. ~ Olga Tokarczuk

(...) maybe in our bodies there's a whole world of mythology? Maybe there exists some sort of reflection of the great and the small, the human body joining within itself everything with everything - stories and heroes, gods and animals, the order of plants and the harmony of minerals? ~ Olga Tokarczuk

Everything about my own face that seemed to me familiar and obvious had vanished; what remained was a distinctive scattering of dots that symbolized the planets set against the celestial vault.

I cannot be someone other than I am. How awful. ~ Olga Tokarczuk

This is why tyrants of all stripes, infernal servants, have such deep-seated hatred for the nomads - this is why they persecute the Gypsies and the Jews, and why they force all free peoples to settle, assigning the addresses that serve as our sentences.
What they want is to create a frozen order, to falsify time's passage. They want for the days to repeat themselves, unchanging, they want to build a big machine where every creature will be forced to take its place and carry out false actions. Institutions and offices, stamps,newsletters, a hierarchy, and ranks, degrees, applications and rejections, passports, numbers, cards, elections results, sales and amassing points, collecting, exchanging some things for others.
What they want is to pin down the world with the aid of barcodes, labelling all things, letting it be known that everything is a commodity, that this is how much it will cost you. Let this new foreign language be illegible to humans, let it be read exclusively by automatons, machines. That way by night, in their great underground shops, they can organize reading of their own barcoded poetry.

Move. Get going. Blesses is he who leaves. ~ Olga Tokarczuk

Below the mill the rivers merge. First they flow close beside each other, undecided, overawed by their longed-for intimacy, and then they fall into each other and get lost in one another. The river that flows out of this melting pot by the mill is no longer either the White or the Black, but it is powerful and effortlessly drives the mill wheel that grinds the grain for bread.
Primeval lies on both the White and Black rivers and also on the third one, formed out of their mutual desire. The river arising from their confluence below the mill is called The River, and it flows on calm and contented. ~ Olga Tokarczuk