László Krasznahorkai Quotes

ظلت جالسة هناك والدموع تنبع من عينيها وجسدها منهك، صار وزن العالم كله ثقيلًا فوق كتفيها

I would leave everything here: the valleys, the hills, the paths, and the jaybirds from the gardens, I would leave here the petcocks and the padres, heaven and earth, spring and fall, I would leave here the exit routes, the evenings in the kitchen, the last amorous gaze, and all of the city-bound directions that make you shudder, I would leave here the thick twilight falling upon the land, gravity, hope, enchantment, and tranquility, I would leave here those beloved and those close to me, everything that touched me, everything that shocked me, fascinated and uplifted me, I would leave here the noble, the benevolent, the pleasant, and the demonically beautiful, I would leave here the budding sprout, every birth and existence, I would leave here incantation, enigma, distances, inexhaustibility, and the intoxication of eternity; for here I would leave this earth and these stars, because I would take nothing with me from here, because I've looked into what's coming, and I don't need anything from here.” — László Krasznahorkai

"Caddedeki eve geldiğinde daha fazla dayanamayacağına ve dinlenmesi gerektiğine karar vererek odasına kapanmıştı. Dinlenecek ve tek saniyeyi bile boşa harcamamak için bir daha asla kalkmayacaktı: O anda, yatağına uzandığı saniyede, artık "salaklaşmanın, aptallaşmanın, odunlaşmanın, dangalaklaşmanın, terbiyesizliğin, zevksizliğin, kabalığın, cehaletin, bilgisizliğin, ve genel seviyesizliğin tonlarca anısının yorgunluğu"nu atmak için, önünde daha bir elli yıl olsa dinlenmesinin yeterli olmayacağını düşünmüştü."

empirical evidence is precisely that which is sacred in so-called scientific thought, and by these means — there’s no point in denying it — we can go far, but at the same time, by following this method, we greatly distance ourselves from the problem, because it’s so, but so manifest that empirical proof itself is something that no one has ever heretofore truly dealt with, namely, no one has ever wished genuinely to confront the deeply problematic nature of empirical verification as such, because whoever did this went mad, or appeared to be a pure dilettante,

[...] la mera pronunciación de estas dos palabras [...] llega a ser algo tan odioso, tan repelente que basta con decir una sola vez y para que uno enseguida sienta unas ganas tremendas de vomitar [...]

Irimiás: God is not made manifest in language, you dope. He's not manifest in anything. He doesn't exist... God was a mistake. I've long understood there is zero difference between me and a bug, or a bug and a river, or a river and a voice shouting above it. There's no sense or meaning in anything. It's nothing but a network of dependency under enormous fluctuating pressures. It's only our imaginations, not our senses, that continually confront us with failure and the false belief that we can raise ourselves by our own bootstraps from the miserable pulp of delay. There's no escaping that, stupid.

When I am not reading Kafka I am thinking about Kafka. When I am not thinking about Kafka I miss thinking about him. Having missed thinking about him for a while, I take him out and read him again. That’s how it works.

What is behind me still remains ahead of me.

When we speak, we speak fluent, unbroken sentences, and this kind of speech doesn’t need any periods. Only God needs the period — and at the end He will use one, I am sure.

Brusc, simti un gust acru pe limba si crezu ca a sosit moartea. (...) era atent, zi de zi, la gustul mancarii, deoarece stia ca moartea se instaleaza mai intai supe, in carnuri, in pereti; mesteca indelung fiecare bucatica de mancare, inghitea incet apa sau, rar, vinul, iar uneori simtea o dorinta irezistibila sa rupa o bucata din tencuiala plina cu pete de salpetru de pe peretii din sala masinilor de la vechea casa a pompelor, unde locuia, si s-o guste, ca-n anomalia ce tulbura ordinea aromelor, gusturilor sa recunoasca Semnul, convins fiind ca moartea este doar un soi de atentionare, nicidecum o irevocabilitate disperata.

Nel fisico era cresciuto, dimagrito, le tempie ormai cominciavano a ingrigirsi, ma per il bambino di allora, o per l’uomo di oggi, tutte le cose che servono su questa terra non significavano nulla, così come non aveva ancora imparato a conciliare il corso immutabile dell’universo di cui lui stesso era parte (una parte molto effimera) con la nozione filosofica del tempo che passa: in pratica non sapeva bene cosa fosse il futuro. Assisteva agli eventi umani che scorrevano lenti intorno a lui senza mostrare passioni o coinvolgimento personale, le sue effettive difficoltà intellettive erano sempre venate da una malinconica tristezza, perché nonostante gli sforzi, non riusciva a capire, e di conseguenza a vivere, come i cari amici che conosceva: il suo cervello, preda di un meravigliato stupore, era scollegato dalle normali faccende terrene (con terribile vergogna della madre, e massimo divertimento della gente locale), sembrava vivere nell’invulnerabilità di un istante eterno, come in una bolla di sapone che non sarebbe mai scoppiata.

The onset of catastrophe is not signaled by the sense of falling through the dark to an accidental death: everything, including a catastrophe, has a moment-by-moment structure - a structure that is beyond measurement or comprehension, one that is maddeningly complex or must be conceived in quite another manner, in which the degree of complexity can be articulated only in terms of images that seem impossible to conjure - visible only if time has slowed down to the point that we see the world as indifferent owing to the available circumstances and having doomed preconditions that arrive at a perfect universal conclusion, if only because they are composed of individual intentions - because the moment is the result of unconscious choices, because a key doesn't automatically fit into the ignition, because we do not start into third gear and move down to second but we start in second and move into third, rolling down the hill then turning onto a highway above the village, because the distance before us is like looking down a tunnel, because the greenery on the boughs still smells of morning dew, because of the death of a dog and someone's badly executed maneuver when turning left, that is to say because of one choice or another, of more choices and still more choices ad infinitum, those maddening had-we-but-known choices impossible to conceptualize because the situation we find ourselves in is complicated, determined by something that is in the nature of neither God nor the devil, something whose ways are impenetrable to us and are doomed to remain so because chance is simply a matter of choosing, but the result of that which might have happened anyway.

De o parte si de alta a soselei, pe portiunea acoperita cu palcuri mohorate de padure pana la linia orizontului, totul este plin cu noroi, iar pentru ca noaptea care se pogoara dizolva consistenta, absoarbe culoarea, transforma incremenirea in plutire, pietrificand tot ce misca, soseaua pare o nava ce stationeaza, leganandu-se misterios in mijlocul unui ocean de mal, mare cat o lume intreaga.

Everything was there, it is simply that there was no clerk capable of making an inventory of all the constituents; but the realm that existed once — once and once only — had disappeared for ever, ground into infinitesimal pieces by the endless momentum of chaos within which crystals of order survived, the chaos that consisted of an indifferent and unstoppable traffic between things. It ground the empire into carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and sulphur, it took its delicate fibres and unstitched them till they were dispersed and had ceased to exist, because they had been consumed by the force of some incomprehensibly distant edict, which must also consume this book, here, now, at the full stop, after the last word.

We have reached the end of one era, and now we don't know what is all around us. Because we're already in a new era, and it is very different from the old one. Science and the world of technology are both changing everything so quickly, even our bodies. So the original ancient culture was present here, but to no avail, at this point in history it has come to stop. It still has some effect, some kind of continuity, but it cannot analyse and reformulate things, it cannot impact things with absolute strength. The age to follow will be full of dangers. It will be full of difficulties. In all likelihood, it will not be a good future for mankind. It is even possible this new era will mean the end of mankind.