Clarice Lispector Quotes

The two murmured more than talked: they had just started dating and were giddy, it was love. Love and what comes with it: jealousy. (beginning of "O primeiro beijo" )

I'm afraid to write. It's so dangerous. Anyone who's tried, knows. The danger of stirring up hidden things - and the world is not on the surface, it's hidden in its roots submerged in the depths of the sea. In order to write I must place myself in the void. In this void is where I exist intuitively. But it's a terribly dangerous void: it's where I wring out blood. I'm a writer who fears the snare of words: the words I say hide others - Which? maybe I'll say them. Writing is a stone cast down a deep well. (p5)

A house is not only constructed with stones, cement etc. A man’s way of looking constructs it too.

I do translate, but I get filled with fear when reading translations of my books. Besides feeling quite nauseous when rereading my own work, I also become afraid of what the translator may have done to my text...

Freedom isn't enough. What I desire doesn't have a name yet. (p61)

Do you ever suddenly find it strange to be yourself? (p43)

This is not a lament, it's the cry of a bird of prey. An iridescent and restless bird. The kiss upon the dead face.
I write as if to save somebody’s life. Probably my own. Life is a kind of madness that death makes. Long live the dead because we live in them.

(Between Ermelinda and Vitória, in “The Apple in the Dark,” which is more Clarice?) CL: Maybe Ermelinda, because she was fragile and scared. Vitória is a woman that I’m not. I’m Martim.

If the twinkling of the stars pains me, if this distant communication is possible, it is because something almost like a star quivers within me. (p59)

Oh God! Having just one life was so little.

Humility in living isn’t my strong point. But when I write I’m fated to be humble. Though within limits. Because the day I lose my own importance inside me — all will be lost.

I don’t want to have the terrible limitation of those who live merely from what can make sense. Not I: I want an invented truth. (p14)

Really nothing happened on that gray afternoon in April. Everything, however, foretold a big day. (beginning of "Trecho")

Twelve years weigh on a person like pounds of lead. The days melt into one another, merge to form one whole block, a big anchor. And the person is lost. ("A fuga")

When I’m not working, I read a review, and it’s all fine. When I’m working, a review of my work interferes with my intimate life, so I stop writing in order to forget the review. Even the positive ones, since I take care to cultivate humility. So sometimes I even feel attacked by praise.