Danilo Quotes & Sayings

During that year by the railroad embankment, at the time of my father's complete disaster, distance meant for us not only some faraway lyrical splendor but also the exceedingly utilitarian idea of running away, the deliverance from fear and hunger. — Danilo Kis

I stop wanting what I am looking for, looking for it. — Antonio Porchia

I would have liked to catch hold of sleep at least once, just as I had been resolved to catch hold of death one day, to catch hold of the wings of the angel of sleep when it came for me, to grab it with two fingers like a butterfly after sneaking up on it from behind. [ ... ] My sleep game was practice for the grand struggle with death. — Danilo Kis

I assigned myself the role of Lot's wife, because her behavior seemed the most human, the most sinful, and therefore closest to mine. Consumed by curiosity, I was drawn to the magnificent, horrible sight of fire and disaster as houses collapsed and towers folded like dominoes amidst human wailing that rose to the sky. My curiosity, brought to an explosive point by the divine warning, was suddenly transformed into my sole trait, overwhelming reason and the feeling of fear, turning me into a weakling of a woman, unable to resist my inquisitiveness, and I would turn around abruptly with my whole body as if rotated by the centrifugal force of my curiosity, which had passed through me like a sword. — Danilo Kis

It is hard to lift up your own misfortune. To be at once the viewer and the viewed. To be both above and below. The one below is a spot, a shadow ... To consider your own person in the light of eternity (read: in the light of death). To rise into the air. The world from a bird's-eye view. — Danilo Kis

There was probably, different times [I was taking care of] 25, 50 families. — Bernie Kosar

I don't want to make a tea set. I want to make crystal, as the wonderful Billy Wiseass would put it. That poor bastard has it good: he's never experienced love. It'll be easy for him to write a romance novel. — Danilo Kis

Since childhood, I was afflicted with a sick hypersensitivity, and my imagination quickly turned everything into a memory, too quickly: sometimes one day was enough, or an interval of a few hours, or a routine change of place, for an everyday event with a lyrical value that I did not sense at the time, to become suddenly adorned with a radiant echo, the echo ordinarily reserved only for those memories which have been standing for many years in the powerful fixative of lyrical oblivion. — Danilo Kis

The local Red Cross chapter volunteered to publish his book. It came out in a deluxe, gold-embossed, Japanese-paper edition to remind the reader of human artistry, which can be a refuge from evil and a source of new, platonic stirrings. One copy was reserved for His Imperial Majesty Nicholas II. (The Tsar fairly devoured mystical works, believing that hell could be avoided by a combination of education and deceit.)

"The Book of Kings and Fools," p. 136. — Danilo Kis

The affectionate farce I make of him ignores the ways I feel his lack of love for me. But we are managing. — Lorrie Moore

I dislike people who get out of things unscraped. No scars, no scratches. Agnosceo veteris vestigia flamme. Refined through a scar. — Danilo Kis

The past was a minefield about which few maps seemed to agree. And why should that surprise me? It's a big place.
p. 30 — Danilo Kis

There are people," my father continued, "who are born to be unhappy and to make others unhappy, who are the victims of celestial intrigues incomprehensible to us, guinea pigs for the celestial machinery, rebels allotted the part of a rebel yet born - by the cruel logic of the celestial comedy - with their wings clipped. They are titans without the power of titans, dwarf-titans whose only greatness was given them in the form of a rigid dose of sensitivity that dissolves their trifling strength like alcohol. They follow their star, their sick sensibility, borne along by titanic plans and intentions, but then break like waves against the rocky banks of triviality. The height of the cruelty allotted them in lucidity, that awareness of their own limitations, that sick capacity for dissociation. I look at myself in the role forced on me by the heavens and by fate, conscious of my role at all times yet at the same time unable to resist it with the force of logic or will. — Danilo Kis

History is written by the victors. Legends are woven by the people. Writers fantasize. Only death is certain.

"To Die for One's Country is Glorious," p. 131 — Danilo Kis

Even a stone would talk if you broke its teeth. — Danilo Kis

Danilo's was the kind of place where many drinking men come to hide, be it from their wives, in-laws, their jobs or life in general. it was where men and women can come to drink poison as if it was the only form of medicine available to remedy the migraine headache called life. The lighting dim and secluded, mostly covering the tables, counters and the door to the bathroom. The walls were decorated in decades of memories, favorite sports teams and other miscellaneous decor that was typical of small bars such as this one. It was too dark to tell what they were from a distance.
There was a thick layer of smoke hovering in the air around the ceiling lights, the place was smothered in it but was strongest above everyone's heads. The smell was the classic stale bar odor of cigarettes and cheap cigars. — J.C. Joranco

You can't play the role of a victim all your life without becoming one in the end. — Danilo Kis

Whatever I won in cycling, I won with my own skills. I never won anything I couldn't win. For example, I never won a time trial at 60 kph, whereas others have and maybe still do. — Danilo Di Luca

It's important to know that words don't move mountains. Work, exacting work moves mountains. — Danilo Dolci

Witnessing the blind fury of this mob and seeing them kill before my eyes the Jews who refused to be converted (some out of faith, and others from that pride which can sometimes be perilous), I answered that I would rather be converted than killed, since, in spite of everything, the temporary agony of being is more valuable than the ultimate void of nothingness. — Danilo Kis

The reading of many books brings wisdom, and the reading of one brings ignorance armed with rage and hatred. — Danilo Kis

I was looking through half-open eyes at the sky, like the first man, and thinking about how - there you are - my uncle had died, about how they would now be burying him, about how I would never meet him. I stood petrified, thinking that one day I too would die. At the same time I was horror-stricken to realize that my mother would also die. All of this came rushing upon me in a flash of a peculiar violet color, in a twinkling, and the sudden activity in my intestines and in my heart told me that what had seemed at first just a foreboding was indeed the truth. This experience made me realize, without any circumlocution, that I would die one day, and so would my mother, and my sister Anna. I couldn't imagine how one day my hand would die, how my eyes would die. Looking over my hand, I caught this thought on my palm, connected to my body, indivisible from it. — Danilo Kis

Understanding the materials I work with ... gives me a deeper understanding of my place. And it's helped me make sense of the changes that are happening to me as I grow older. — Andy Goldsworthy

Big defeats make us learn. — Danilo Di Luca

I wish to live in peace with myself and not with the world. — Danilo Kis

I start writing when I overcome my disgust with literature. — Danilo Kis

The fantasy of a man is the best weapon of a woman. — Sophia Loren

Such polite manners for an armed man who was kidnapping me. Danilo could take a few lessons from him. — Robin Bridges