Jaroslav Kalfař Quotes

In one book, your father is a hero. In another book, he is a monster. The men who don’t have books written about them have it easier.

Death would be so much easier to dance with if it weren’t surrounded by the clutter of civilization.

What did you expect? the core asked me. No, I asked that of myself. Another projection. My desperation to ascribe personality and will to capricious outcomes of chaos. The true kings of the world, elements and particles, had no agenda except movement.

I wonder which group I belong to. Can I be with the youth, the hedonists turning Prague into a playground of the Old Continent? Or does my destination, the science department of Univerzita Karlova, put me in with that other dreaded group, the adults, those who get up in the morning and know exactly how their day will unravel, those who live on the exchange system of work, awaiting their grave with quiet politeness?

I couldn’t exist here. In the world that had come into being due to my absence.

The organization of religion is self-defeating, a trap for sin.

The universe assigned the tasks of speaking and kissing to the lips because there is never a need to do both at the same time.

Miracles were nonsense, mere coping mechanisms.

I have visited a few astronauts, but all three either ignored me or prayed. The senseless chanting, I confess, repulsed me.

The greatness of a nation is in its symbols, its gestures, in doing things that are unprecedented. It’s why the Americans are falling behind—they built a nation on the idea of doing new things, and now they’d rather sit and pray that the world won’t make them adapt too much.

To fear a truth! Blasphemy!

Do you feel free?"
"I feel like I've lost too much."
"Freedom can feel that way.

His conviction is a compulsion not subject to self-preservation.

His presence was soothing, but his existence incomprehensible.

My father never did anything else after that," Valerie said. "Mostly, he became a drunk. But a man only needs one thing to be proud of. It will carry him through the rest of his life.