Roberto Bolaño Quotes

Life is mysterious as well as vulgar.

His novel or book of poems, decent, adequate, arises not from an exercise of style or will, as the poor unfortunate believes, but as the result of an exercise of concealment. There must be many books, many lovely pines, to shield from hungry eyes the book that really matters, the wretched cave of our misfortune, the magic flower of winter!

... the novel, arguably the author's best, had a disquieting power, like a sleeping crocodile.

Then he went out without touching anything and put his arm around Ingeborg, and like that, with their arms around each other, they returned to the village while the whole past of the universe fell on their heads.

Does this mean that in some places I'm American and in some places I'm African American and in other places, by logical extension, I'm nobody?

[A]nd the wizened youth trembles more and more violently, wrinkles his nose and then pounces on the story. But only I know the story, the real story. And it is simple and cruel and true and it should make us laugh, it should make us die laughing. But we only know how to cry, the only thing we do wholeheartedly is cry.

All names disappear. Children should be taught that in elementary school. But we're afraid to teach them.

For a while, Criticism travels side by side with the Work, then Criticism vanishes and it's the Readers who keep pace. The journey may be long or short.

When people read his books they have an uncontrollable desire to hang the author in the town square. I can’t think of a higher honor for a writer.

Reading is more important than writing.

You have to listen to women. You should never ignore a woman's fears.

I’m seventeen years old, my name is Juan García Madero, and I’m in my first semester of law school. I wanted to study literature, not law, but my uncle insisted, and in the end I gave in. I’m an orphan, and someday I’ll be a lawyer. That’s what I told my aunt and uncle, and then I shut myself in my room and cried all night.

Posthumous: It sounds like the name of a Roman gladiator, an unconquered gladiator. At least that’s what poor Posthumous would like to believe. It gives him courage.

At the bar on the Favoritenstrasse, Julius the policeman talked to us about dignity, evolution, the great Darwin and the great Nietzsche. I translated so that my good friend Ulises could understand what he was saying, although I didn’t understand any of it. The prayer of the bones, said Julius. The yearning for health. The virtue of danger. The tenacity of the forgotten. Bravo, said my good friend Ulises. Bravo, said everyone else. The limits of memory. The wisdom of plants. The eye of parasites. The agility of the earth. The merit of the soldier. The cunning of the giant. The hole of the will. Magnificent, said my good friend Ulises in German. Extraordinary.

An individual is no match for history.

That's a pretty story,' said Afanasievna as she let go of Ansky's genitals. 'A pity I'm too old and have seen to much to believe it.'It has nothing to do with belief,' said Ansky, 'it has to do with understanding, and then changing.

There is a time for reciting poems and a time for fists.