Quotes by Stephen King

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At night, when we turn off the lights and go to bed, I still have to make sure my legs are under the covers. I'm not a kid anymore, but… I can't fall asleep with my legs sticking out from under the covers. Because if a cold hand reached out from under the bed and grabbed my ankle, I would scream. Yes, I would scream so loud that even the dead would wake up. Of course, that doesn't happen, we all know that. (…) The creature hiding under my bed, waiting to grab my ankle, isn't real either. I know that, and that if I'm careful enough and keep my legs under the covers, he'll never be able to get a hold of my ankles.

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One can only escape from the future into the past.

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Life is short, only sorrow is many; the least we can do is help each other once we're here.

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There are things that we are both nothing compared to, and there are things that everyone else is nothing compared to.

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Nothing can be calculated.

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You have to understand that there are things... that are hard to forget.

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Get out of here and try to smile. Turn on some rock and roll on the radio and go into life with all your courage and faith. Be true, be brave and stand up for your truth!

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It is true that those who are curious grow old quickly, but you know, satisfaction makes you young.

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When we're waiting for something, a single minute seems like an eternity.

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The light disappeared, (...) only the empty, maddened vibration of the nerve endings continued to function, which does not stop until hours after death. (...) He began to run and just ran breathlessly... preferably from the final horror - this was the last thought vibrating in the pale light, which quickly dissolved into nothingness in the dark channel of eternity, so that nothing would remain behind him, only the nerves were empty, his deranged hum.

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The realization brought everything close, made it real, and his compassion broke through the thick fog of shock.

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They survived the night, even though Tad was dead. They made it through the next day. And the one after that. It didn't get much better in late August or September, but by the time the leaves turned yellow and started to fall, it got a little better. By a very small one.

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But somehow we manage. After all, this is how people live, isn't it? They manage somehow. And they try to help each other.

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They both knew that it was okay to open doors... just not to look too deep behind them. Because there are evil things lurking there, ready to pounce.

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If you try to carry the world on your shoulders, first your back will break, then your soul will break.

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Those who keep secrets usually sleep little and badly.

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The greatest thing about fairy tales is that time, when nothing special is happening, just flies by. In real life, things are never that simple, and it's probably okay.

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There are things that one should not worry about.

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And anyway: what you don't know can't hurt you. It is not true? If a person walks through a dark room with a deep hole in the middle and misses the hole by only a few inches, he doesn't need to know that he almost fell into it. Do not be afraid. Especially when the light is off.

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Fear is a yellow-toothed monster that an angry God unleashes on earth to devour the unwary and the inept.

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When survival is at stake, when it's just a question of what moves and animates a person, then suddenly everything becomes extremely simple. Man either survives or perishes.

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There are things you don't even want to say. Not because he's ashamed. Just because sometimes it's better - and kinder to others - to keep up appearances.

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The world is a damn fragile thing, more fragile than a colorful Easter egg, empty inside.

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Life is not easy if we don't adapt.

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Girls can be very mean.

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Something very strange is going on here. No: beyond strange. It's horrible and inexplicable, but it happens all the time.

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The screen killed the printed word.

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Love knows no obstacles.

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One always hopes.

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Home is where the beginning is.

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Horror allows us to experience (rather than banish) feelings that society expects us to control.

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You're so busy that there are days when you can't think, and sometimes it's really good when you can't think.

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It's all about time.

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Not all lies are the result of a conscious decision.

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Band-Aids are like the police - there aren't any around when you need them.

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Not all secrets are evil secrets. There are also good secrets. There are also necessary secrets.

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Sometimes people can lie by remaining silent.

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Fictional horror stories help us endure real horrors.

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The crowd is a lonely place, a community that lacks love.

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Dread is a feeling that you have to fight alone all your life.

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In the end there is only doom and nothing else matters!

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When a man has to choose between his pride and responsibility, he almost always chooses pride - when responsibility robs him of his masculinity.

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Maybe the writers invite the ghosts. Along with actors and other artists, they are the mediums that society accepts. They create worlds that never existed. They populate the worlds with people who were never born. And then they invite us to join this fictional world. And we join. Yes. We even pay for it.

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There will definitely be a bad day. It's a bad day for worms that eat tenderloin. I see their blood on the moon. I see guns and torches. I see a wraith that walks and talks.

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Real monsters have feelings too. In fact, I think that's ultimately what makes them so terrifying, not what they look like.

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It has to be said once, it has to be condensed, it has to be put into shape, the way things behave when a person forces himself to express in words the formless emotions simmering inside him.

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After the feeling of grief, surprise is the most difficult to fake effectively.

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To cut to the chase, the writer is simply a guy who gets paid to lie. The bigger the lie, the higher the honorarium.

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The world is such a strange place. And tough. And sometimes unlucky.

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No one can be sure what they think about a certain subject until they put their thoughts on paper.

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There are people who are quite good at lying to themselves.

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A person pays once for each donation. Perhaps that is why God first creates man as a child, barely visible from the ground, because he knows that he will have to fall a lot and scratch his knees until he realizes this simple truth. We pay for what we achieve: and only what we pay for is ours. And what we gain sooner or later hits us back.

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It is said that women are born with the right to ask for themselves.

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The medical synonym for miracle is "misdiagnosis".

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Anger is like an inflammable gas - it flares up immediately from the smallest spark and is enough with a single flame.

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A living baby is actually the glue that holds a marriage together, but a dead one breaks it down like acid.

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Why is everything so damn hard, so damn mysterious, and he knew it was a question he would never get a satisfactory answer to... except that human relationships are like that. The answers that really matter never come easily.

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Believing is the same as feeling.

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Understanding sometimes bypasses the brain and comes straight from the heart.

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Memory really means everything to a person. Memory is the sense of identity. You are yourself.

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Pain is a greater force than love.

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There's one rule of modern life that's more rock-solid than never having a policeman when you need one: when you really need a human being, you always end up with the answering machine.

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Friendships that start with laughter tend to be strong.

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When you decide to write under a pseudonym, it's like becoming invisible.

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Sometimes you have to do something that feels right - that's it. I mean: whatever your heart tells you to do. And if afterwards he starts to think about it and feels that he has put his brain to rest, as if he had gone to his stomach, then he regrets it and imagines that he did it wrong. (...) It just doesn't occur to people that they shouldn't doubt in their hearts, but precisely in these doubts. (...) And it is best not to talk about what a person's heart hides.

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The ground of a man's heart is stony. (...) The man discards what grows in him... and takes care of it.

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You can't help it. His soul is that of a poet, but his emotional culture is like that of a dog wandering in a garbage dump.

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Fourteen minutes ago I bought a digital Seiko watch on the black market in Venice. Those little black numbers that keep changing are fascinating. (...) In the middle of the night, I look at this new watch of mine, and it tells me that death is approaching moment by moment.

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There is so much emptiness in me. I didn't know such a void existed, and I'm afraid it will swallow me up.

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You have to make your own way in the world; rely on your own strength if you want to go through it.

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Then all thought evaporated, and only the body remained - a body that clung to life with a wild, elemental instinct.

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He was no longer afraid; the fear evaporated as quickly as one forgets a nightmarish dream, even though he had just woken up trembling and clenching his teeth - but then he felt himself and looked around his room, convinced himself that he had only dreamed it all, and the memory is already starting to fade . By the time he gets up, he has already forgotten half of it; by the time he got out of the shower and toweled off, three-quarters of it had disappeared; and by the time breakfast is over, there won't be any left. It's gone anyway... until the next time, when in the grip of a new nightmarish all the old fears resurface.

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Fiction: truth disguised as a lie.

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I can hear him saying something, but the words prove nothing.

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If you write about yourself, it can be like sticking a piece of wood into a crystal-clear river and stirring up the filth-filled bottom.

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Death is the point where pain ends and beautiful memories are born. Life doesn't end, only pain does.

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We fool ourselves so many times that we could easily choose it as a profession.

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Time passes. If you are quiet, you can hear his mournful shuffling.

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Pain is the greatest driving force of love.

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Man simply has no power over the things he has committed, he cannot undo them.

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Life is a wheel, no one can stay on top of it for long. And in the end it always comes back to the same place.

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When a person apologizes, things go smoothly. That's how the world works.

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In fact, no one ever knows where things will end, or if they will end at all.

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When someone we love dies suddenly, it burns a big black hole in the center of our hearts. The most effective way to plug this hole is to accept that the person has some stupid bad luck. Even better, we can believe - maybe just for a little while - that someone or something can be held responsible. This makes the hole smaller.

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Whoever feels the wind should not build a windbreak, but a windmill.

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A human life - especially if it is long - is made up of millions of events; in fact, it is a huge tapestry with many different patterns woven into it.

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The love that matters is the care... we always crave and never get what we want. This may be all we take with us when we pass out of life and into death. Little consolation, but even that is better than nothing.

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If the wheels of the universe really exist, the good will always compensate for the bad - but unfortunately, good things can also be terrible.

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The best we can do is lie to ourselves.

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God always punishes us with what we cannot imagine.

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The truth is that life is both planned and random, though not in equal measure.

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When the problem reaches a certain level, it can no longer be improved or changed, because everything will get worse and worse.

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Why is it that life always demands so much and gives so little?

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I don't know much about the subconscious mind, but something beats in our head, just like in our chest, and it carries formless, unexpressed thoughts, which most of the time we can't even decipher, and usually these are the most important.

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I didn't see anyone, I didn't talk to anyone. The outside world is almost completely left behind, and when this happens, one begins to hear oneself more clearly. And if our selves - the surface and the deep - understand each other better, this eliminates self-doubt and eradicates confusion.

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Yes, always the past. There is that which hurts and which one cannot overcome.

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If you almost always win, then victory will taste like fermented grape juice.

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Pain is like a drunken guest: it always comes back for one last meltdown.

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Some dreams die and fall, that's one of the bitter truths of life. How many more bitter truths are there?

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When a man tries to stay alive, he sees only what he needs to see; the rest stay behind the fence.

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Life is more than avoiding pain.

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Sooner or later everything you think you left behind will return. For better or for worse, it will return.

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Events sometimes follow each other like dominoes lined up: the first knocks over the second, that knocks over the third, and so on.

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How certain and safe can a life be, if from such a small thing as the disappearance of a faded rag rug, one feels that everything has fallen apart, lost its direction, everything has become sad and scary?

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I've already told you about institutional dependency. At first, when you get between these walls, you almost feel like you can't stand them, then you tolerate them, then you accept them... then finally your body and soul adapt to prison life, you almost start to love those hated walls with your soul.

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The world is completely empty if there is no love in it, if there is no one to call your name, if there is no one to call you home.

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He wanted to call out her name, he wanted to call her home, and then his heart broke as he thought about the years that lay ahead of him and wondered what good love is for if this is the end, if you feel this way even for ten seconds.

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For men, love consists of two equal parts: lust and wonder. Women also understand the latter, they just think they know what grows on the tree. Perhaps if there is one in twenty among them who would guess what its nature is or what depths it penetrates; of course, it may be good for their nighttime rest and peace of mind.

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There is no human instinct more powerful than the aroused sexual desire, and the images that arise in its wake are engraved in us for life, like tattoos in our souls.

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This is how it goes: one day after another, one meal after another. In a given moment, we only breathe once, in a given minute we perceive only one type of pain. The dentist treats only one root canal at a time; shipbuilders build only one ship at a time. If you are writing a novel, you can only go from page to page. The rest - all that we know, all that we are afraid of - falls away from us. We browse catalogs, watch a game, decide to connect to Sprint instead of AT&T. We count the birds in the sky, and although we hear approaching footsteps from the corridor, we do not turn back; we say, yes, yes, the cloud often reminds us of something else - a fish, a unicorn, a man sitting on a horse - but it really remains just a cloud, nothing else. And even if lightning comes out of it, we still say, oh, it's just a cloud, and our attention is already occupied by the next meal, the next pain, the next breath, or the next page of the novel. Well, yes - that's how it goes...

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Mind and hand, despite the best intentions, cannot create identical works, because we ourselves are not the same as we were the previous day or even the previous moment.

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If you held my hand, I might die of happiness.

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Darwin was too polite to say that we rule the world not because we are the smartest, or indeed the meanest, but because we have always been the most violent, the most damned killers in the jungle.

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Man came to rule this planet, and to do so he possessed two essential qualities. One is reason. The other was that he was unconditionally willing to destroy anyone and anything that got in his way.

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The human soul, especially the child's soul, is like a well: a deep, deep well full of sweet water. And if a thought is too unpleasant for someone, he locks it in a box and throws it deep into the well of his soul. He waits until he hears the splash... and the box disappears. In some ways at least - because it never really goes away. (...) Even the deepest well has a bottom where such boxes rest. The fact that they are not visible does not mean that they do not exist (...) these inclusions of evil and terror can start to rot in the depths, and over time they can poison even the cleanest water.

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No matter how much time you spend with someone, in the end you will feel that you were not enough with them.

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There are things you never forget. He began to realize that these things - the music, the moonlight or the kiss - which in practical life one considers momentary and therefore does not care much about, are precisely these things that last the longest. They may seem ridiculous, but they defy oblivion the longest.

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Childhood has its own sweet secrets and exists as proof of mortality, and mortality includes courage and love.

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Laughter cannot be denied. When he comes, he plops down in your favorite armchair and stays there as long as he wants.

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Time washes away everything, whether we like it or not. Time folds everything under itself, and in the end nothing remains but darkness. Sometimes we find someone in this darkness, then we lose them again, they fall back to where they came from.

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Perfect happiness may appear in the light of small inconveniences.

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Death, where dreams are still there, but love - home, the hand that locks onto your hand, when at the end of the day flocks of birds cross the sky in front of the burnt-orange disc of the Sun - will be missed.

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There is something that no six-year-old in the world should be told: the way things should be and the way they are are almost never the same.

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Everyone has powers... except maybe toddlers and babies.

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Guilt is like an itchy rash: it never goes away because it forces you to deal with it.

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Sometimes our loved ones don't notice what they don't want to notice in us.

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When we talk about the past, we always shuffle the cards falsely.

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No one shines all the time, maybe only the Good Lord in the sky.

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In some ways, spying on someone is equivalent to stealing from that person - the moment is stolen by the spy, the moment that those who are missing believe is only theirs.

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He grew up, but he had to realize that adulthood is far from what he imagined as a child. At the time, he thought the day would come when he would decide to put his toys away. But it didn't happen like that at all - he just lost interest in them. The game meant less and less, the dust of the years settled on the sweet memories of childhood, and they were slowly forgotten.

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- Look, my son, you are too young to accept the wisdom of others, but I can tell you: love is a great enemy. (...) Sure. Poets forever misunderstand love. Often on purpose. Because love is a great butcher. Love is not blind. Wow, not at all. He's more of a cannibal and has eyes like an eagle's. Love is like an insect. And forever hungry. - What does it feed on? (...) - With friendship. It devours friendship.

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People will not get better, at most they will become smarter. And if they are smarter, they will pull out the wings of the fly in the same way, only they will find a more cunning reason for it.

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When you bite into the hand that feeds you, it is expected to close into a fist. It doesn't just go that way; this is just fair.

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Even in the middle of life, death stalks us.

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There are few things that remain true to a person. Maybe a few books, a fortune or an ever-growing stamp collection. And the Christmas tree decorations of the parents' house.

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It's funny how death comes from all sides. Man tries to outwit him, barricades himself from one side, but death still finds a way to him from the other side.

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In matters of life and death, the right moment only comes once. Once and then there forever.

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Maybe there is no such thing as a good friend or a bad friend - maybe there are only friends, people who stand by you when you are hurt and who help you not to be so lonely. Perhaps it is always worth worrying and hoping for them, it is worth living for them. Maybe even die if it has to be. No good friends. There are no bad friends. Only people who build a house in your heart.

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Death is a mystery and burial is a secret.

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The most important things are the hardest to say. When you talk about them, you feel ridiculous, because when you put them into words, they shrink - while they are in your head, they seem limitless, but when they are spoken, they become insignificant. But I think there's more to it than that. The most important things lurk too close to the place where your soul's most dreaded secrets are buried, guiding you like beacons to the treasure your enemies would so love to steal. And if you do try to talk about them, you only get strange looks from the audience in return, they don't understand at all, they don't understand why it's so important to you that you almost cry. And I think that's the worst. When the secret stays a secret not because of you, but because there is no one to understand.

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If one wants to be a writer, one must do two things first; read a lot and write a lot.

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Sometimes true love is as silent as it is blind.

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If you fall in love with someone, (...) you can never recover from it.

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Hope is a good thing, maybe the best thing. And good things don't die, just like bad things don't live forever.

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This was the point when he reached the end of the world - and took another step.

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The world is generally like a cruel desert, and in such extreme conditions it is almost impossible to find flowers.

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The mind calculates, the soul longs, and the heart knows what it knows.

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There are things that are better not seen, and some things that are better lost than found.

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You are not the potter, but the clay in the hands of the potter.

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If you're not sure about something, it's okay to speculate until you know better or until the truth comes out.

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This here (...) is real life, in which there are no real answers.

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God has nothing to do with rationality; God has something to do with faith and trust. God says, "Nah, just take down that safety net. And if it's not under you, then cut the rope."

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She sat there on the bench with tears streaming down her face, wanting to know what every child wants to know when someone they loved suddenly disappears: why is it happening, why did it happen to me, is there a reason for this, or is it just some crazy roulette wheel spinning ? If it means something, what should I do with it? If it doesn't mean anything, how can I bear it?

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A five-minute battle gives birth to legends that live on for millennia.

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Children tend to exhaust their parents in the first twenty years, and in the second twenty years, to abuse their parents.

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Life is like a narrow plank over a bottomless chasm, a plank we must cross blindfolded. That in itself is bad, but not the worst. Sometimes they can push you.

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Stopping laughing was like trying to stop the leaks of a poorly constructed embankment: as soon as you plug one gap, the water starts flowing again elsewhere.

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People keep silent about many things about death (...), including how long it takes for the ones you love the most to die in your heart.

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Sometimes you get better from someone you don't know than from someone you already know.

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If a person throws his wedding ring in the toilet and even flushes it, it goes beyond all limits.

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Sometimes nothing is right, I guess. (...) Strange world. Sometimes you just do what you can and try to get by.

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Cruelty is ultimately understandable, but insanity cannot be argued with.

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You are your own Seherazade.

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Writers remember everything (...). Especially for pain. Strip a writer naked, point out the bruises, and he'll tell his story to even the youngest. And large wounds will not become amnesia, but a novel. Of course, some talent doesn't hurt if you want to be a writer, but the only real requirement is to remember the history of each twist. The essence of art is tenacious memory.

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Everything that we don't understand, that doesn't fit into our thought system, we simply put in the file with the letter T, as "subconscious", right? The god of the twentieth century.

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The world is a strange place, Danny. He doesn't care about us. He doesn't hate you and me, but he doesn't love us either. Terrible things happen in the world, things that no one can explain. Good people die in bad, painful ways, leaving relatives who loved them alone. (...) You mourn your father. When you feel like crying about what happened to him, hide in a closet or hide under the covers and cry until you're done. That's what a good boy does. But be careful, you have to go further!

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This is your job in this strange world: you have to keep the love alive inside you, but in the meantime you have to move on, no matter what happens.

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We do everything we can, we have to make do with it... and if we don't make it, we still have to do it. Nothing is ever lost. Nothing that can't be found.

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He crossed out each passing day with a thick, black felt-tip pen and felt that he could not have a worse attitude to life.

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They lived happily ever after? No. They had good days. They had their victories and they had their failures. There were times when they were ashamed of themselves because they didn't do their best and there were times when they could be proud of themselves. They lived as they all could, some longer than others, but they all lived well and bravely.

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We like to hide behind made-up words when real words hurt us.

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That something kills all hope, that's what cancer patients see in the glass of water next to their bed, when all the painkillers are gone, and the morphine pump shows zero, and the dawn is still far away, but the pain doesn't go away, it just gnaws deeper and deeper into the dying into his sleepless bones. And this something is alive. He hates everyone and is extremely gluttonous.

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The counter-arguments to madness fall into nothingness with a soft rustling sound. (...) Sometimes you really hear things disappear, don't you? Some of them fall down, level by level, leaving only a hole through which one can look down into the depths. Or if you're not careful, you can fall into it yourself.

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He felt more and more confused as these memories kept surfacing. As if the past had never ended, as if everything continued to happen again and again on the floor of the endless tower of time.

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Logic cannot silence a sense of personal bankruptcy. Only time can help, but time never does a perfect job either.

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Grief (...) is like a rock on the ocean shore. When one falls asleep, the tide comes in and brings some relief. Yes, the dream is like the tide: it covers the rock of pain. But when a person wakes up, the tide recedes, and soon the rock appears again, surprised by the shells, an indisputable reality, and it will remain there forever, at least until God dislodges it.

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He was brought up in the belief that God is love, but later he began to wonder: how loving is a God who makes men and women smart enough to land on the moon, but stupid enough to be forced to learn again and again: there is no such thing as word that forever.

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Women. You can't live with them, you can't live without them.

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There is a higher judgment seat than that of men, I will be judged there.

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Time is also a strait, just like the one that stretches between the islands and the continent, but the only ferry that can cross it is memory, and it's like a ghost ship - if we want it to disappear, a time it will go away after.

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There are two types of scares; at least in my opinion. TV scares and real scares. I think we usually only reach the level of TV scares. For example, when you're waiting for your blood test results, or when you're walking home from the library in the dark and think there are bad guys hiding in the bushes. We don't really freak out about crap like that because we know deep down in our hearts that the blood test will be negative and that no one is in the bush. Why? Because this kind of thing only happens in the movies.

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Whatever we preach about free will, beneath such notions are our instincts as an iron skeleton. There are some things you just can't say no to unless you put the barrel of a gun in your mouth, or your head in a gas oven, or you walk off the edge of a cliff. You have to put the garage down - that is, you have no choice.

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It can be like this when we talk about lasting memories, like this or something similar, which one sees at the right time, from the right angle, an image that kicks aside emotions with the speed of light. It is so clear in front of you that the events that have passed in the meantime fade into nothingness. If desire closes the circle between the world and the will, then the circle closes.

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I think it's very rare that ordinary human conflicts are resolved the way they are on TV. In reality, they constantly return, describe smaller and smaller circles, until they finally disappear. Or maybe they don't even disappear, but dry up like mud stains in the sun.

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Absence doesn't exactly make the heart grow fonder, but it definitely refreshes the eye.

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Hope is a good thing, struggle is noble, but in the end only fate decides.

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I don't believe there is a real, thinking God who records the death of every bird in Australia or every beetle in India, a God who writes down all our sins in his great golden book and judges us when we die - I don't want to believe in a God who is deliberately evil he creates people to then purposely send them to burn in hell, which he also created - but I think there has to be something there.

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Two donkeys meet tied to a pole in a wild west town. One of them has nothing but a saddle on his back. The other is the gold-digger's donkey, loaded with sacks, camping and cooking equipment, and four twenty-five-pound sacks full of ore. His back bends like an accordion under the load. The city donkey says: Well, you're carrying quite a load. To which the gold-digging donkey says: Burden? What kind of burden?

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I don't believe in corpse-robbing vampires, ghosts and monsters. And I think it's good that such things don't exist, because I don't think there is a good Lord who could protect us from them.

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If the problem goes away for a little while, it is better than if it doesn't go away at all.

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One is first afraid of dying, then of not dying.

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Alone. Yes, that's the key word, there's no such terrible word. Murder doesn't even come close, and hell is only a poor synonym.

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The basis of all human fears: a previously closed door - half open.

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If everything in a person's life suddenly collapses, (...) you need something simple and predictable that you can hold on to. And if a person happens to find nothing else for this purpose than the alternation of healthy, well-organized blood pulsating behind his eyelids and the last rays of the October sunlight - well, then he accepts it and thanks him profusely. Because if he doesn't find even such a catch, if he doesn't come across something that is reasonable and explainable at least on such an elementary level, sooner or later the strangeness of his new world order will drive him crazy.

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After waking up, most dreams are like the empty cocoon of a moth or a split pea pod: so many dead skeletons through which life stormed violently, but fleetingly, and then exited.

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In other words, things change in the dark, (...) - especially when you are alone. At such times, the lock falls from the cage that holds the imagination, and no one can know what breaks through the bars.

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Anyone who reads a book is just as willing to start talking about the weather as anyone else, but can usually move on from there.

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We cry with our eyes, we were given no other option, but that evening I felt as if tears were flowing from every pore, every crevice and corner of my body.

"

It is not about love or affection; I can give it, and I can accept it. I feel the pain just like anyone else. I long for the caressing hand, and I like to be caressed too. But if they ask me if I feel good, I can't say no. It doesn't occur to me to ask for help.

"

The last melody dissipates in the air, the world stops breathing for a moment after so much beauty.

"

Those who love each other meet at the end of the journeys.

"

Death is just a transition, a place to wait, like we wait in the locker room before going out to play.

"

I believe that there is good in the world, which the loving God pours out in one way or another. But I also believe in another power, just as real as the God I have prayed to all my life, who consciously works to destroy every decent resolution. Not Satan, I don't think he's Satan (though I believe he's real), but the demon of disharmony, some wretched and silly thing that giggles with glee when an old man sets himself on fire when he just wanted to light a pipe, or when the beloved baby takes his first Christmas present in his mouth and chokes on it.

"

Mort believed that people - even those who try to be honest with themselves - are unable to accept when something ends. They trust, or at least try to trust, even when the final decision has already been written on the wall, in such large letters that anyone can read it from hundreds of meters away. When something is really important, it's easy to cheat, it's easy to mistake reality for a soap opera, and convince yourself that you don't have to see the situation so darkly, everything will turn out well in the end... maybe just after the next commercial. Mort thought that without the amazing power of self-delusion, humanity would probably be even crazier than it is now.

"

In high school, a series of irrevocable decisions begins. Doors close with a soft click, and one hears their noise clearly only years later, in one's dreams.

"

The men struggle, the women wipe the dust.

"

There is nothing to fear, time is only a legend, death is only a dream, and all is well.

"

I don't necessarily believe in marriage, but I do believe in monogamy. A man, a woman, when they find love, they have to stop there.

"

Written or spoken words have their own afterlife and no one can command them.

"

Deep down, I'm convinced that we unfortunate human beings are designed to always prepare for the worst, because it happens so rarely, that what's merely crap seems perfectly tolerable (almost good, in fact), and we can accept it.

"

An honest woman occasionally changes the truth, but a good liar never changes his lie.

"

Any fool with steady hands and strong lungs can build a house of cards and then blow it up, but it takes a burning mind to make people laugh.

"

Makeup erases many of our sins.

"

The truth is in the details.

"

If you get angry with the critic, you can almost guarantee that he is right.

"

Only the obsessed worry about the obsession.

"

In my opinion, imagination has no other purpose than to provide comfort and refuge in the otherwise unbearable moments and situations of life.

"

In everyone's mind, somewhere in the back, there is a sediment collection ditch that opens in times of stress or trouble, and many things from consciousness can be swept into it. To get rid of certain things. Bury them. The ditch empties its contents into the subconscious, but sometimes, in our sleep, it gets disturbed and digs back up.

"

Only adults are able to consider such a boring thing as walking as their hobby.

"

The refrigerator turns on and off. The pipes hum quietly. The floor creaks. The traffic is roaring outside. We hear these sounds all the time, so we usually don't even hear them.

"

Necessity is the mother of ingenuity.

"

Your brain can be your best friend; keeps you entertained even if you have nothing to read or do. But it turns against you if you don't have access to external stimuli for a long time. It turns against you, which means that it turns against itself, attacks itself, even eats itself in a kind of self-cannibalism.

"

Disappearing is not the same as dying. It's not like cutting something with a hatchet, more like something going down the drain, so slowly that you almost don't notice its absence until long after it's gone.

"

The teaching profession means constant pressure, especially at the secondary school level. You spend five out of every seven hours on stage and you have to play to the toughest audience in the world.

"

Recovering from a nervous breakdown is like breaking a vase and then putting it back together. We can never trust that vase again. We can't put flowers in it, because they need water, and that can dissolve the glue.

"

He does not know true fear, who has not woken up at night by the screams of his child.

"

If being a child means preparing for life, then the essence of being an adult is preparing for death.

"

After a while, every house reflects the personality of its inhabitants.

"

If you are a black sheep, don't try to rise above the mediocrity assigned to you.

"

There are two things that we usually only recognize in retrospect. Stupidity is one. The other is the opportunity we missed.

"

Love secretly comes with compromise.

"

Dot all i's and cross all t's: this is the secret to success.

"

The city really resembles a human body, but it has one major advantage over the human body: if its head malfunctions, it can be replaced.

"

What is right and what is necessary are sometimes at odds.

"

If we pray for something we want, God will close his ears, but if we pray for something we need, he will be all ears.

"

Fear can only be overcome in fairy tales, but if you accept two rules, you can live with it. (...) What I have no say in, I have to take care of. I have to turn disadvantages into advantages.

"

Those who are able to do so act, those who are not, get involved in the actions of those who do.

"

Caution can never be superfluous.

"

If one regrets what one has done, that is better than nothing, but no amount of regret can make up for one's pleasure in destruction.

"

If the night was dark, it will be twice as bright as the day.

"

If a child donates clothes to someone who is naked, he has already taken a big step in the right direction.

"

It happens that when a man and a woman come to a crossroads, they linger there for a while: they don't want to step on either road, because they know that if they don't make the right choice, it means the end of a relationship worth preserving.

"

I never try to convince anyone who loves me to see better, that's all I can say, because love is never logical enough.

"

In life, just like in a card game, once something is laid down, it's in the game.

"

War is not worth it, a war is never worth it. Even if it was worth it, it's not worth it.

"

I feel like I could even survive old age with you.

"

Only enemies tell each other the truth. Friends and lovers entwined in the web of duty lie like streams of water.

"

Can not only one house be haunted, but an entire city? Not just for some building, street corner, basketball court of a small playground, the empty basket that stands out from the dimness at dusk like some bloody and mysterious instrument of torture - not just for a particular neighborhood, but for everything? For the whole thing? Is it possible?

"

All the intelligence and determination in the world cannot create art without the spark of talent.

"

There is only one stupid question: the one you fail to ask.

"

The world has teeth and can bite into you whenever it wants.

"

Nowadays, people place too much importance on understanding, while no one feels safe.

"

An exhausted mind can easily fall prey to obsession.

"

I love you too much to lie to you, Lisey. I love you with all my heart. I think that love of this intensity is a burden for all women after a while, but this is the only way I can love. It looks like we will never have financial problems, but I will almost certainly remain an emotional beggar for the rest of my life. We will have plenty of money and you will not lack for anything. I will never tarnish or destroy what is between us with lies. Neither with what I say nor with what I keep silent.

"

He who goes through the fires of hell will be hardened.

"

Very cute person and all, easy to get along with, funny, never laughs. But is this love? I mean, is that all there is to it? Even when you're learning to ride a bike, you're bound to fall off a few times and scrape up your knees.

"

Money earned from this does not bring luck.

"

There are things that need to be said or seen or found.

"

It was as if something had closed in his heart. It wasn't really a great feeling. That was the worst thing about it - that it didn't really feel like much at all.

"

One never recognizes the books that shaped one's world view.

"

Really crazy people have to hide how screwed up they are. Otherwise they cannot survive.

"

Only plan what to say when you have a disagreement with someone. If you're really angry - if you want to bite someone's head off, as the saying goes - the best tactic is usually to shift back into 2nd gear, then hit the gas all the way and let it go.

"

Instead of treating her with such nonsense as "hope dies last", "smile and the world will smile back", "even the darkest night will end" (...) he simply hugged his sister . Because sometimes that's the best you can do. He also taught this to the man whose last name he took more than twenty years ago. Sometimes it's best to listen. Sometimes it's best to keep your mouth shut and keep your mouth shut.

"

In the realm of memories, everything is relative.

"

Money, ten or twenty years of prosperity, does strange things to a person, because it makes him believe that there is no difficult situation from which he does not have the right to fight his way out.

"

If your sister doesn't tell the truth, you can't count on anyone.

"

Is that all it means to be an adult? Do you have to endure this pain? Do you have to learn the lesson at your own risk? If that's the case, it's worth dying young.

"

There is no greater blindness than ignorance.

"

It was also like when he played blindfold as a child. Every child has tried what it's like to be "blind". You had to get from one corner of the house to the other blindfolded. Of course, everyone found it terribly humorous when you fell over a stool or tripped over the threshold between the kitchen and the dining room. The game was good for learning to one's own detriment how little one remembers the furnishings of a basically familiar house, and how much more sight means than memory. And after the game, one wonders what life can be like blindly.

"

Apart from shoes, John Rainbird was interested in only two things. One was death. His own death, of course; for twenty years, if not earlier, he had been preparing for the inevitable. Death was his craft, the only craft he excelled at. As he got older, he became more and more concerned, just as the painter is more and more concerned with the nature and quality of light, and as the writer feels for the essence of the characters and details, like a blind person with the letters of Braille. He was most excited by the passing itself, the moment of the soul's departure... The separation from the human body and everything that people call life - the melting into something else. How does it feel to know that one has to go? Does it feel like it's all a dream to wake up from? Is the Christian devil waiting somewhere with his pitchfork to pierce the screaming soul and drag it to hell like a piece of meat on a kebab stick? Is there joy in passing away? Does one know that this is already death? What do the eyes of a dying man see?

"

Full steam ahead, let the devil take the consequences.

"

Ninety-five percent of the people on earth are simply powerless. One percent holy, one percent stupid. The other three percent are those who do what they believe they can do.

"

What has happened once cannot be undone, and what one remembers once must live with it forever.

"

The harder it is to open a package, the less you care about what you find inside.

"

Parents are awkwardly affected by their children's problems from the time they are too old to be ordered home after dark.

"

Try to think less. This friend of mine down here says that eventually we wear out our sorrows. Somehow I believe him.

"

Like any strong drug, first true love is only important to those who are its captives. And like other powerful drugs, first true love is also dangerous.

"

When one is still too young (...), cheerfulness is a perfectly adequate response to failure.

"

Writing is a lonely occupation. It is very important to have someone who believes in you. You don't have to talk about it: usually it's enough to believe.

"

There is something to learn in every book you pick up, and it is quite common to learn more from bad books than from good ones.

"

When creating a literary work, every word is a joy, but when you write a non-literary book, every word is a kind of suffering.

"

It is the possibility of darkness that makes the day so bright.

"

Pride is a joke, hearing which sooner or later the stranger inside us will laugh.

"

Angels are not threatened with damnation, but humans are not so lucky - for them, hell is always close...

"

What the eye can't see, the heart doesn't hurt.

"

The ones whom the Lord loves the most are the ones he calls to himself the soonest.

"

Lightning cannot be fixed with money, nor does it end bad dreams.

"

I still don't really believe in God, I don't believe in a real being who has plans for us and assigns us small tasks like Boy Scouts to earn merit badges on the Great Hike of Life.

"

Everything is connected to everything else, it always has been, and once you discover the first connection between memories, it's like knocking over the first domino.

"

The devil first deceives the mind, then he devours the heart.

"

Memories distort a person's perception of reality, and the most vivid memories regularly destroy time, while keeping the mind under their control.

"

Certain things absolutely must be true because they simply have no choice.

"

There are a lot of things that people think they can't do, but when they have to, they realize they can.

"

People just say they know everything; they actually just believe in something dictated by their religion or belief.

"

Big things often depend on small things.

"

Writing is a temptation. Appropriate speech is part of seduction. If not, why would so many couples start the evening with dinner and end it in bed?

"

Penance is a mighty thing; this is the lock with which you can close the door to the past.

"

A child born blind has no idea of ​​his disability until someone enlightens him, and even then he has only a theoretical suspicion of what blindness means; only those who have seen it before really understand this.

"

Memories are like a line drawn in the dust. The further back we go, the more blurred the line becomes, the harder it is to see where it leads. In the end, there is nothing left but the smooth sand and the black hole of nothingness from which man came.

"

The dead are orphans. They have no company but silence, like the wings of a butterfly.

"

Even death makes people cringe.

"

As the great rock and roll poet said: I gave you my heart to wipe your ass.

"

That the pain comes and goes away is just an appearance. In fact, it is like the piling: sometimes it is visible, sometimes it is covered by water, but it is always present.

"

Your home is where someone wants you to stay.

"

It all depends on the man to control himself and... and take care of the innocence of his past.

"

What is hideous is the sticky, invisible rubber gloves around you. Wherever you hide, he comes after you.

"

It's a bad idea to put aside a job just because it's not emotionally or imaginatively appealing enough. Sometimes you have to keep going even if you don't like it, and good work happens even when you feel like you have to sit and shovel shit.

"

The word is only an expression of meaning; the writing does not even come close to conveying the full meaning.

"

Life sometimes conjures up such chance encounters that no writer would dare to copy.

"

Not much knowledge can be gained without risk.

"

If you want to receive, you must give.

"

There are times in a person's life when the minutes are not real, so that they cannot be counted.

"

They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and I know that to be true. I know from bitter experience. I just don't know why - why is it that when a person tries to do good, it so often leads to bad?

"

People love hypocrites because they recognize themselves in them.

"

There is no proof of what awaits us after death: nothing to back it up with science, only the mere promise and our need to believe it all makes sense.

"

Religion is the theological equivalent of quick-money insurance scams: we pay the insurance premiums year after year, and then when we need the help we paid the premiums with - excuse the pun - with so much faith, it turns out that the company that took our money, doesn't even exist.

"

Where we come from is a mystery and where we are going is a mystery. Maybe there is something, but I bet it's not the God any church teaches about.

"

The secret is that it takes two souls to keep it, it likes to jump between two pairs of eyes.

"

All my life I've been what they wanted me to be, and now that I've broken my shell and become a normal, everyday person with normal, everyday wants and needs, it's only natural that people object.

"

Character is truly revealed in defeat, not in victory.

"

Adolescence is the only age when a person constantly preaches about change, but in his heart he believes that nothing ever changes.

"

I don't believe in curses. Neither in spirits nor in other supernatural things. However, I will admit that emotions and events have a certain... quite long-lived... resonance. Emotions may communicate with each other under certain circumstances.

"

The truly terrifying thing about growing up is that you stop trying on your old masks and suddenly take on a new one.

"

I wish I had a heart as good as my mother's. He saw the good in everyone. I, on the other hand, am as mean as a snake when it has shingles.

"

If you can't laugh and have a little fun when things go wrong, you either don't live anymore or you want to die.

"

They say that while we live, we hope, and I don't have a problem with that, but I also believe in the opposite. While we hope, we live.

"

Curiosity is a horrible thing, but it's human. He's very human.

"

People are always looking for reasons for bad things in their lives. However, sometimes there is no reason.

"

People prone to fear live in their own hell.

"

Talent (...) has the uncanny habit of sneaking into your life quietly but firmly when the time is right.

"

One of the few things I've since learned about basic gender differences is this: men make all kinds of assumptions, but women rarely do.

"

I think that most people who experience a great loss, who experience a really great tragedy in their life, come to a crossroads. Maybe not right away, but when the shock wears off, definitely; maybe months, maybe years later. Then, as a result of their experiences, they either become more than what they were before, or they get together.

"

Children learn much more from the example they see than from the rules.

"

Death is sometimes a natural phenomenon, merciful because it ends suffering. But all too often he comes upon us as an assassin, full of senseless cruelty, without any trace of compassion.

"

This is how we bring damnation upon ourselves - by not heeding the voice that begs us to stop. To stop while we still can.

"

Prayer is just a manifestation of what psychologists call "magical thinking", so there is no God. If he does, why would he come here to look after me?

"

The purpose of a work of literature is not to be grammatically correct, but to greet the reader, then tell them a story...and, whenever possible, make them forget they're reading a story.

"

Writing is magic, just as much the water of life as all creative arts. Water is free. They drink.

"

You can't make the most of your time if you're nervous.

"

The only deadly sin is giving up.

"

The longer the loose part, the bigger the tap at the end.

"

In the dark, thoughts describe a perfect circle, no matter what you do against it - no matter how hard you try to think about flowers, Jesus or baseball, maybe about winning gold at the Olympics - somehow everything leads back to a figure waiting in the shadows with huge claws and unmoving eyes .

"

One cannot hope to sweep others aside with the power of one's writing until the same happens to oneself.

"

Of course, some people don't want to hear the truth, but that's not our problem. One cannot be a writer without striving for the exact hit.

"

If a person likes to do something, he is willing to bother with it.

"

Reading is the creative center of a writer's life. Wherever I go, I take a book with me, and I always find an opportunity to read it. The trick is that one has to learn to read in small and large portions. The waiting rooms are designed directly for the books. But the lobbies of the cinemas serve the same purpose before the screening, the long and boring queues, and everyone's favorite, the toilet. You can even read while driving, thanks to the audio book revolution.

"

When a person is nineteen years old, all wires are still good and tight, all connections are durable and solid.

"

Time always seems to slow down when you are anxious or afraid.

"

Humor is mostly nothing more than a glaze on the temper, but in small towns this layer of glaze is quite thin.

"

Reality (...) is as thin as the ice crust on the lake after melting, and we crowd our lives with noise, light, and movement in order to hide this recognition from ourselves.

"

There are people among us who, with an amazing sense, ask the most stressful and embarrassing questions without even intending to - this is also a gift, it's like someone is constantly knocking on the door.

"

Fear is like pain: once we get over it, we quickly forget it.

"

Survival is like love. Both are blind.

"

Regret is a symptomatic treatment. You regret it if you miss the coffee or spoil the game by not hitting a single piece in a row while bowling. However, true sorrow is as rare as true love.

"

We smell wine, dogs smell each other's asses, the result is the same.

"

Dreams age faster than dreamers.

"

Writing is not to make money, to be famous, to date, to get laid, or to make friends. Ultimately, it enriches the lives of those who read our work and enriches our own lives as well.

"

You learn the most by reading a lot, writing a lot, and you always teach yourself the most valuable lessons.

"

Writing is not life, but I think it can sometimes bring you back to life.

"

The brain is man's best friend; it keeps you entertained even when you have nothing to read or do. But if he doesn't get a stimulus for too long, he turns against the person.

"

When you get to a certain age - around fourteen, usually around the time when two halves of the human race make the mistake of discovering the other - well, that's when time starts to be real time. The really real time. It's not as long as before, and it's not as short as it will be.

"

There are no ghosts, dwarves, demons, just good old fear.

"

Sometimes a person is able to free himself from his tormenting spirits once he musters enough courage to face them.

"

If a person desires something, he does not care whether it will benefit him or not.

"

Like water from a tap, love flows from the heart, and the heart has its own laws.

"

Sometimes a person cannot do anything else: he simply takes what he needs.

"

There are more things on earth and in the sky than even in the wild dreams of philosophers.

"

If we are seriously injured, everyone calls us by our first name, everyone becomes a friend.

"

If it weren't for heart and imagination, literature would be pretty pathetic. Maybe it wouldn't even exist.

"

There are things one cannot say. He'll die before saying them.

"

In a world where vehicles can soar higher than the mightiest eagle, anything is possible.

"

There is no such thing as a Trash Can of Ideas, a Story Center, an Island of Secret Bestsellers; ideas for good stories seem to literally come out of nowhere, sailing down from the empty sky: two separate ideas meet and something new is created under the sun. One's job is not to find these ideas, but to recognize them when they appear.

"

The fault is always the same, my golden chicks: whoever is weak enough to blame someone else.

"

Our lives are like (...) houses of cards (...). Sometimes there's a reason why they crash, sometimes there's no reason at all.

"

When you are only six years old, there are much fewer limits in your life.

"

God is an expert in fragile things and disguises his gloomy vision with the finest glass decorations.

"

Until the age of seven - when they supposedly come to their senses - the majority of children can be considered an echo chamber from an emotional point of view. If they grow up around adults who are peaceful, smooth, and don't raise their voices, they will behave the same way.

"

The cardinal law of life (...): just when you should kick, you shouldn't.

"

God is just a term, a turn of phrase that you use when you see yourself sinking neck-deep in shit, obeying the law of gravity. There is no God, no God.

"

March is nothing more than a cold, slushy harbinger of the real spring.

"

When you're twenty-one, life is like a tourist map. It's only when he's twenty-five that he begins to realize that he's holding the map upside down.

"

The only way to go on is to go on. Even if you say I can do it when you know it's not true.

"

It's easy to dwell on the past, and it's just as easy (if much more unpleasant) to dwell on possible developments in the future. It is even harder to stay in the present with two feet.

"

Marriage is like a house that is constantly being remodeled, adding new rooms every year. The newly wed is a small bungalow; twenty-seven years later, it has expanded into a huge, ever-expanding manor house. It is inevitable that there are no secret nooks and crannies, most of them are dusty and abandoned, but some hold some unpleasant relics that were a shame to find.

"

A promise is meant to be broken.

"

The men just laugh. They all fell off trees and broke their arms when they were kids, and they all remember what little pranksters they were. But they don't remember their mother getting up in the middle of the night to give them the aspirin.

"

See how life imitates art! And the rougher the art, the more accurate the imitation.

"

When awake, the consciousness is aware of the essence of the dream, but the sleeper is unaware of the concept of awakening, the real world, a healthy mind; only the wailing madness of the dream exists.

"

In fact, this is the essence of art. It is not only pictures that sometimes affect people in this way, but also certain books, sculptures, stories - even a sandcastle. They are after us and they will catch us. It's as if the people who created them suddenly spoke in our heads.

"

Those who do not learn from the past are guilty of repeating their old mistakes.

"

Is humanity even aware of how wonderful it is to snuggle up in each other's arms and stay there for hours at a time in the warm nest? Some may know this, but they are in the minority. The secret of cuddling is only truly understood by those who have had to do without this experience for a long time.

"

Life is like Friday in a soap opera. It gives the illusion that everything will be closed, and then on Monday the same crap starts again.

"

If you see something bad, close your eyes and think that it's not there, and by the time you open it, it's not there anymore.

"

It is much easier for a person to live with a spoken truth than with a lie.

"

Maybe the children being born (...) are pulling the clouds of glory behind them, but in the meantime, until they wise up, they will all poop in their panties.

"

The hand that rocks the wretched cradle moves the wretched world.

"

We all die. The world is also a big lie down, only the air is fresh.

"

We all shake in the same box for nine months, and then the dice start spinning. There are people who roll all sevens, and unfortunately, there are those who roll only twos. The world is just like that.

"

In every person lives another person, a stranger who boils evil.

"

Does hell exist or do we create our own hell here on Earth?

"

The death of our loved ones involves many things, not least a lot of work.

"

In small towns, the imagination is limited.

"

You have to be mentally prepared for serious lies, at least while you're young.

"

You know what mothers used to say to each other, right? This one had an easy birth, that one had a difficult one. (...) Well, it is the same with death.

"

If you don't command your emotions, your emotions will command you.

"

No matter how thick a person's checkbook is, he remains a small person if he does not believe in his own dedication.

"

Of all emotions, fear is the most exploitable.

"

You can't command a pipe cleaner any more than you can command an anthill.

"

The idea is like the cold bacillus: sooner or later it is transmitted to someone.

"

In times of crisis, people - religious people as well as pagans - tend to seek comfort in familiar, familiar moments.

"

Bad always comes with worse. People believe that the worst has already happened, that all their nightmares have merged into one impossible and yet existing, real horror, and their only consolation is that it can't get any worse - even if it were like this online, it would make sense to see it, and no longer would understand. But the worst does happen, one's mind does not snap, and life goes on. We may be aware that the world holds no more joy for us, that what we have done will forever deprive us of the hoped-for benefit, we may wish that we had died instead of the other person - and yet life goes on. We realize that we have sunk into the depths of the hell we have conjured up, and yet we continue to live, from one day to the next - because there is nothing else we can do.

"

The devil you know is still better than the devil you have no idea about.

"

Visionaries have always had to bear the barbs of ridicule.

"

True terror is the most physically crippling of all emotions. It exhausts the endocrine glands, pumps muscle-stretching organic compounds into the bloodstream, speeds up the heartbeat, and tires the brain.

"

The fictional narrative is one of the vital ways in which we try to give meaning to our lives and the often horrifying world around us. Narratives suggest that sometimes (...) things make sense.

"

The local politicians don't know much, the local cops a lot more, but the editor-in-chief of the local newspaper knows everything.

"

Both can only keep a secret if one of them is dead.

"

The stupidity of colleagues makes life simple.

"

Give people back their self-respect, and they usually regain their ability to think clearly.

"

Some people - a lot of people - don't even believe what they see, especially if it contradicts what they want to eat or drink, or even think and believe. I, for my part, do not believe in God. But if I saw it, I'd believe it.

"

A book doesn't really exist until it has an audio version. Being read aloud makes good work even better, and lousy work is mercilessly brought to light. It's like taking a bright light and shining it on your face. Then even good makeup can't cover up bad writing.

"

If we have too much fun with the unknown, something terrible will happen.

"

The urge to see someone else dead works incessantly. This urge is not affected by civilizational and social changes, because it is an absolutely legitimate human need ingrained in the human soul to be able to say that there is nothing wrong with us, and we can judge this by the fact that others really do.

"

You need a little bit of flu to become a writer, because you have to imagine worlds that don't exist. We hear voices, we can believe something, we do all the things we were told we shouldn't do as children. Or they said to choose reality and those things separately. Adults tend to react like this: "Sure, you have an invisible friend, that's cute, you'll grow out of it." But the writers don't grow it.

"

You think: okay, I understand, I'm ready for the worst, but you cling to that little hope, and that's what finally (...) brings you down.

"

Nothing destroys memory like repetition.

"

You can't heal your heart. Only time can do that. However, you can restore your body.

"

You start to get restless, then you start to suspect something, then you already know. Maybe he doesn't want to, maybe he thinks: lovers misjudge the situation every step of the way, but deep down he already knows.

"

Reason defends itself to the point of breaking nails. After the first shock, the cloud of news dissipates, and something starts to cross one's mind: yes, this is bad news, of course, but it is not the last word; maybe there is still a chance.

"

Literature should smell of sweat, close to the body. (...) I want to turn to the reader, I grab him and lock him in a sweaty embrace so that he cannot escape. I always tried to hurt the reader, but at the same time to make him feel better. I think a book should be really alive and really dangerous in many ways.

"

Narration is like a stick of dynamite when the wick is short. (...) We light it and it's over.

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Anyone who reaches a wide audience, who is popular, immediately thinks that what he is doing is shit. There is artistic literature and there is commerce, and between the two there is a wide river of misunderstanding.

"

The worst advice I've ever been given is to not listen to critics. I think you should listen to them, because sometimes they draw attention to mistakes that can be corrected. If we bury our heads in the sand, we won't hear the bad news and can't change what we're doing. But if we pay attention, sometimes we can get rid of bad habits.

"

We adults never remember our childhood. We just think we remember it, and that's even more dangerous. The colors are brighter, the sky seems higher. Children are constantly falling from one shock to another. They have such fresh and strong impressions that it is almost frightening.

"

If you live long enough, after a while, when you are so old that you start to figure yourself out, and you and your contemporaries have all had strokes or heart attacks, people start to speak favorably of you, mostly because you survived the wreck derby. This is when he gets good reviews after creating his major works.

"

A writer used to tell things as they should have turned out, not as they actually happened.

"

For me, the real purpose of having children has nothing to do with the preservation of the species, the commanding necessity of survival, rather it serves to end our own childhood. By starting a family, we can re-experience everything we experienced as children, but now from a more mature point of view.

"

I do not commit to anything that would improve the quality of life at all from a physical point of view. I can't even fix the frozen plumbing in my house. All I can do is say, come on, this is how you can look at something in a new way. Maybe it's just a cloud to someone else, but look at it, isn't it like an elephant? And people are willing to pay me to show them because they themselves have completely lost that ability. That's why writers and visual artists are paid, it's the only thing that gives us, baggage over the weight limit, the right to exist. I am a bird on the back of civilization.

"

Children are most excited about what they want to hide from them.

"

History is humanity's collective, ancient pile of shit, a huge, ever-growing pile of shit. We are on top now, but the poo of the generations after us will bury us one and two. To give just one example, this is why the clothes of the ancestors look so strange in old photographs. (...) You are also one of those who are destined to be swallowed up by your children's and grandchildren's drool.

"

We live in a depressing world full of wars, cruelty and senseless tragedies. Every inhabitant of this land has plenty of relief from unhappiness and sleepless nights. If you haven't experienced it yet, you will.

"

I never managed to write the books I dreamed of, those well-reviewed, almost bestseller-suspected novels, but I earn quite well as a writer, for which I am infinitely grateful to fate; there are thousands and thousands who are not so lucky.

"

The fears locked in a child's brain are too great to be spoken.

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There are evil people in the world, truly evil. Sometimes we hear about them, but usually they work in total darkness.

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People accept the existence of telepathy, precognition, or teleplasm quite easily, since it costs nothing to believe. This allows them to sleep soundly at night. But the fact that the evil that people do outlives them is more disturbing.

"

There is a saying: when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

"

There are two kinds of people in the world when things go really bad. (...) Let's say there is a house full of rare paintings, sculptures and wonderfully beautiful antiques (...). And let's say that the owner of the villa heard that a terrible hurricane was approaching (...). One type hopes for the best. That maybe the hurricane will change its mind and change direction. (...) The other is saying that the hurricane is targeting his house exactly and will rip through his apartment. If the weather report says that the hurricane is changing direction, the groundhog does not believe it, and finds that the scourge will inevitably return to raze his house to the ground. This second type knows well that it can't hurt to hope for the best but prepare for the worst.

"

The past is past, even as it defines the present.

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The best way to find out who God likes best is to check their bank accounts.

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There comes a moment when one realizes that there is no point in wandering any further. Wherever we go, we take ourselves with us.

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No one writes a long novel alone.

"

Fears... are only faint imitations of the terror that every child faces in the dark, in the crib - there is no one to whom they can tell and who understands perfectly what is wrong, only another child can be like that. For the child, there is no group therapy, psychologist or psychiatrist who would help him cope with something lurking under the bed or hiding in the basement at night, barking, gesturing and threatening where he can no longer see. Each night is the scene of the same lonely struggle; the only cure is the curdling of the imagination - which comes with growing up.

"

There is one good thing about old age: we don't have to fear that we will die young.

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I have no opinion about the afterlife. Neither pro nor con. I'm like, I'll find out when I get there, and that's enough for me.

"

When it comes to the past, we all become poets.

"

One thinks that first love is sweet, and it is sweetest when that particular first bond is broken. They can hear thousands of pop and country songs that are all about this: a foolish boy has his heart broken. Certainly, the first love is the most painful, it heals the slowest, and it leaves the most visible scar after it. So what makes it so sweet?

"

Jesus looks down on me from the wall But his face is cold as stone; Why do I feel so alone, If he loves me, as he says?

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Religion is a dangerous tool... but I believe that God exists.

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It's hard to let things go. Even if what you should let go of is full of thorns. Perhaps that is the most difficult.

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If you don't feel love for anyone today, at least don't hurt anyone.

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There are birds that should not be caged. I think his pen is too bright, and his song sounds sweet and wild. So you can't do anything else, you have to let him go, or it could happen that when you bring him food and open the cage door, he somehow escapes before you know it. And this part of you knows very well that it was a sin to keep you locked up, and at first the joy comes through, but at the same time, the place you left behind becomes much grayer, emptier after you set it free.

"

Human nature cannot be condemned, and is there anything more human than curiosity?

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It doesn't matter if they believed you or not, a spic is a spic.

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Everything revolves around: what goes around comes back. It could be luck, or it could be fate, but it certainly is.

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Rational thinking is based on emotions.

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What's free is worth everything.

"

I didn't want to cry, but I almost expected to; I started to fall apart like a paper handkerchief in a downpour.

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The emptier the head, the louder the mouth.

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Genetics is the only king in human affairs.

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In each compartment of the brain of adult men and women, all their stages of development are present - not only the inner child, but also the inner infant, the inner teenager, the inner young adult.

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Great things don't happen overnight.

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Even the devil can quote the Bible.

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A smoker never quits, he just takes a break.

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Time (...) may heal all wounds, but God knows, some wounds heal very slowly.

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That's the trouble with social networking sites: lies thrive, truth rots.

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Can you remember the pain at all? Hardly (...). One knows that it exists and one knows that one has suffered through it, but it is not the same.

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The human soul cannot be sicker than its secrets.

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Death is no less a miracle than birth.

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Reason will return when needed; imagination can also come back if needed. Right now it's the body's turn, and the body says dinner.

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Reality is thin ice, but most people skate on it their whole lives and only break through at the very end.

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The very old and the very young have always seen more clearly.

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If you can't let go of the past, your mistakes will eat you alive.

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When you get old, you want nothing more than peace. You may not believe it now, but in time you will too.

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Dreams fade. Reality never is.

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Estimate the day! (...) This is the only one until tomorrow.

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No child can be spared from growing up with moral preaching.

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Everything seems smaller when we say it.

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We are as guilty as our secrets.

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Life is like a wheel, its only job is to turn and it always returns to the starting point.

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Sleep is nature's doctor.

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The easiest thing for a person to glide over is what is in front of his nose.

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Life depends on a single spin of a dime, and the piece of metal spins very fast.

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Gravity is an anchor that pulls us to the grave.

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His brain is like a radio blaring at full volume, tuned between two transmitters.

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When stupidity reaches a certain level, it's hard to live with.

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I've always felt that all of us, from kings and princes to guys washing dishes at pancake houses and girls changing sheets at highway motels, have the whole world inside of us.

"

You can't have everything (...); everyone gets a little poop in their life. Sometimes you get what you need. And a reasonable person cannot ask for more than that.

"

The relative is the only one that cannot be ordered from Amazon.

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Love is both a gift and a chain with shackles at both ends.

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There always comes a point when you have to let go of caution.

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Most people like pain, even if it's not theirs.

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Memories are ghosts. But figures stumbling through the corridors of musty castles? I think they only exist in books and movies.

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It never hurts to be safe. You sleep better.

"

He who lies is walking on quagmire ground, and usually every lie leads to two more.

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Wives have special senses; ex-wives have hypersensitive radar.

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When you find where you belong, you hear a click, not in your head, but in your heart. You can ignore him, but why would you?

"

Charity benefits the soul, but it also empowers the person.

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Business is like rugby (...). If you have to push someone up to reach the goal line, then don't hesitate, otherwise why did you put on a shirt and go out on the field in the first place.

"

Alcoholism and insomnia have much in common, but most importantly, they both sicken the heart and the mind at the same time, and when allowed to run wild, usually destroy the spirit sooner than the body.

"

Random is crazy. Planned is sane.

"

Everything is possible. (...) Everything. The world is full of strange nooks and crannies.

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I don't trust anyone who looks back on the age between 14 and 18 with pleasure. There's something wrong with anyone who likes being a teenager. (...) Adolescence is a difficult period that often equates to a nightmare.

"

Ghosts are actually a mixture of unburied secrets, bad conscience and unexplored psychological turmoil.

"

There are only a few places in the world that we know enough to write about, but people are the same everywhere. Friendship, love, hate, greed, hiding secrets, fear of the unknown... these things are the same everywhere and in every culture.

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Time is a cunning thief.

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Fear does not survive familiarity, let alone knowledge.

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Love is not a trap that you open or close as you please.

"

There are certain things that the son of man - and the daughter of woman - persistently strive for. They are not the kind of things that usually appear in the history books; I'm talking about important things. A roof that protects you from the rain. A warm spoonful of food. Decent sex life. Healthy digestion. (...) There is nothing in the world that can be compared to a normal night's sleep.

"

You would never realize how important sleep is until you start suffering from its lack. Then all the floors tilt and corners are rounded off.

"

Pain is a funny thing, but it is a very good stimulant.

"

Old age is like bad candy after a really good lunch.

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The worst part of aging is loneliness - not the ache here, the ache there, not the hysterical bowels, or the fact that you can't breathe when you climb the stairs you flew up in your twenties, but the loneliness.

"

At quarter to five in the morning, anything seems possible. Any.

"

Sleep (...) is an unbiased friend, humanity's best and most reliable nurse since the dawn of time.

"

What is the past? It is only as much as the base of the coffin; one grabs it, lifts it, and then puts it down.

"

Anyone who knows business is also aware that it is easy to forget a promise, since it costs nothing.

"

There are strange things in this world. A practical person takes this into account and uses it to his advantage if possible.

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Life sucks and then you die.

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The problem with lies is that one leads to another. Soon it will be like driving on a road you don't know. You are lost.

"

The world is full of fools who will break their arms and legs to show how smart they are.

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Stupidity is a prison from which one never gets out, there is no reward for good behavior, it is a life sentence.

"

Love slows down one's reflexes and silences the sense of danger.

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Something beats nothing every day of the week.

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A working man is only worth his damn wages.

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Sometimes things only work out because you think they do. There are many definitions of faith; this is no worse than the others.

"

As soon as a person has a child, he realizes that he must die. You see your own tombstone in your child.

"

If the person is on the floor, some people feel compelled to step on the person's back or neck instead of helping them to their feet. It's ugly, but that's human nature.

"

Education itself is a gift. We cannot give or receive better.

"

You can't make an aquarium out of fish soup.

"

- Do you believe in something else (...)? - Oh, just as usual. In death and taxes and being the most beautiful girl in the world.

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Sometimes you have to laugh. Just like that, for nothing. And in such cases, no one or nothing can stifle the laughter.

"

Adults never notice children. (...) At least if they are on a skateboard.

"

- If I can repay your kindness with anything, you just have to say. I just have to say. How young, how beautifully ignorant does one have to be to give someone such a blank check?

"

Writing, at least temporarily, burned out my sense of reality. I think that's ultimately what it's all about. Whether one writes good or bad - time passes with it.

"

Inspiration is usually most fruitful when it has no precedent.

"

Every day is just another car on the same ghost train. Life is a disease.

"

That's the good thing about not crying. Crying is like peeing; everything comes out.

"

People perceive cancer, a cold, a heart attack, or an illness of some other important organ as a betrayal. The patient is shocked that such a close (and hitherto great) friend as his own body suddenly seizes up and goes on strike. Our next reaction is that if a friend lets us down so mercilessly, then they are no longer worthy of our friendship. And according to the resulting conclusion, it is completely irrelevant whether this friend is worthy of us or not. One cannot turn away from one's own unfaithful body, petition against it, pretend not to be at home when called on the phone. (...) Perhaps the body is not a friend at all, but an enemy, which, since the beginning of the disease, is only preparing to victoriously destroy the higher will that has dominated it until now.

"

At the age of twenty-four, you can still allow yourself to believe that becoming an adult, at least in your case, is just a clerical error that will soon be corrected. Then one day you wake up to find that your dog is eighty-four years old and you yourself are thirty-seven, and then the whole question needs to be examined more thoroughly.

"

Sometimes people think they have reached the bottom of the well of human stupidity, and the (...) warning that this well of stupidity is bottomless is sometimes extremely useful.

"

Happiness is the exact opposite of sadness, bitterness and hatred; therefore, happiness should not be examined as long as it is not absolutely necessary.

"

Faith is a big thing, and truly religious people want everyone to believe that faith and knowledge are the same thing. But as for me, I don't believe in that. Maybe because people think about this question in too many different ways. We can only know one thing: that when we die, two things can happen. Either our soul somehow survives death or not. If so, there are plenty of other options. If not, it's all apples. It's over and no more.

"

True grief (...) is rare like true love.

"

Only the child does not lie. He's a kid though.

"

The cat is the gangster of the animal world, it lives outside the law and is not protected by any law. It is rare to live to a peaceful old age by the fireplace.

"

Perhaps the most terrifying of all questions is precisely this: how much horror does the human soul endure while still maintaining its alert, receptive, unrelenting sanity.

"

What the eye cannot see, the heart does not ache.

"

The same tear that heals can also hurt and punish.

"

The home where we can dance with others, because dancing is life.

"

Women are better at keeping secrets, but men are less stressed by secrets.

"

I believe in love; love is portable magic, and unique in that. I don't think it's written in the stars, but I believe that blood speaks to blood, consciousness to consciousness, heart to heart.

"

He who has no friends has no grief.

"

We live to fight another day.

"

Death is lurking everywhere: in the bag of peanuts, in the bit of meat swallowed on the side, in the cigarette pack within your reach. He is always there for you; whatever checkpoints there are between mortal and eternity, He stands at each one. A rusty needle, an angry bug, a live ground wire, a forest fire, roller skates on which silly little puppies run straight into a busy intersection - it doesn't matter to him.

"

There are rusty, half-buried secrets in the soil of the human soul, to which one compulsively returns and tugs at them, no matter how bloody the skin is.

"

People who are sick for a long time often turn into demanding, disgusting monsters. The legend of the patient patient who behaves like a saint is a romantic fantasy, nothing more. By the time the bedridden patient gets the first sore on his bottom, he will be evil, he will bite everyone and transfer his misery to others. Of course, he himself cannot do anything about this, but this does not change the situation of those involved.

"

Experience reports describing life after death, which used to appear first in scientific papers and then in a much diluted version in the tabloids, express the ultimate human resistance to the onslaught of death; the inexhaustibly inventive human spirit constructs visions of immortality in order to ward off the madness of the fear of death at the last minute.

"

When a person grows old, the self-defense system of memory gradually ceases to serve, just like the rest of the body, and places, faces, and events are suddenly recalled with eerie certainty. Memories that have faded to a pastel color shine, their colors become true to life again, the sounds are heard in their original purity, the cracked congo echo of the passage of time is no longer mixed into them.

"

From the beginning, the mourner instinctively wants to escape from the place where the thing happened - but if he gives in to this instinct, it turns out to be extremely harmful in most cases, because it is a luxury of extremely dubious value if one renounces facing the changed reality.

"

False modesty is almost as much a sin as pride.

"

There comes a point in the lives of people who are left to their own resources when they cease to live and begin to merely survive.

"

There is some force that keeps drunk youths - most drunk youths - from getting into accidents on their way home from their school prom or their first rock concert. This is what keeps most airplanes out of harm's way even if something goes wrong. Not all of them, most of them.

"

Life depends on the spin of a coin. Sometimes it rolls towards us, but mostly it spins away, blinking coquettishly.

"

Mind and heart go their separate ways.

"

When we have no choice, hesitating is always a mistake.

"

If you know which way the wind is blowing, you can also tell when its direction changes.

"

Everyone decides for themselves what is good. It's always been that way, it always will be that way. You can be a thousand years old, you can shoot like Buffalo Bill, your concept of good is still individual.

"

There are three things you can do in any situation. (...) You decide to do something, you decide not to do something... or you decide not to decide anything. - Which latter (...) leads nowhere, and (...) this is the choice of the weak and fools.

"

People always find excuses for their bad habits.

"

There is nothing to say. There is a way that the answer is hidden inside the person.

"

A person, given a little time, gets used to everything.

"

Time is as merciless as it is malleable.

"

Questions that have no answers just waste time.

"

Business is like a god. Everyone loves it, but no one understands it.

"

People often slip over the simplest answers in life.

"

Do they know what is the most beautiful thing about teaching? The moment when a child discovers the talent in himself. There is no more feeling like this on earth.

"

There is nothing more destructive than weak praise.

"

Life is too beautiful to give up without a fight.

"

Life can and usually is very sad. People pretend it's not like that and lie to their children (...) so they don't get scared and disillusioned, but yes, life can be sad.