Die schönsten Buchzitate (Seite 9)

They regarded themselves as too sophisticated to believe in destiny, but still, it remained a paradox to them that so momentous a meeting should be accidental, so dependent on a hundred minor events and choices. What a terrifying possibility, that it might never have happened at all.

It is shaming sometimes, how the body will not, or cannot, lie about emotions.

All she had needed was the certainty of his love, and his reassurance that there was no hurry when a lifetime lay ahead of them.

I'm holding back, delaying the information. I'm lingering in the prior moment because it was a time when other outcomes were still possible.

When they kissed she immediately felt his tongue, tensed and strong, pushing past her teeth, like some bully shouldering his way into a room. Entering her.

Er liebt sie, und sie liebt ihn. Und die Zukunft liegt vor ihr, voller Möglichkeiten. Vielleicht hat sie nach all der Zeit doch noch Glück, und ihr wird ein Lächeln geschenkt.

Sieh mich an, denke ich. In diesem Moment hebt sie den Kopf, als hätte sie meine Gedanken gelesen. Nervös leckt sie sich mit der Zunge über die Unterlippe. Ich spüre die Anspannung in meinem Körper, als heißes Verlangen durch meine Adern schießt.

An image like a forgotten dream develops like a Polaroid in my memory.

When did I acquire a conscience?

Calling to the gods, she's every inch a goddess.

I take a slug of my drink and scan the room. That's what I want now: a hot, willing woman, skinny or otherwise. It's Let's Fuck Thursday.

'Have you travelled at all?' 'No. Only in books.' Her smile brightens the room. 'I have travelled all over the world in books. And I've been to America watching TV.'

It's a tough job, but someone has to do it. Might as well be me.

And now they are hugging in the street and he's holding her. The betrayal is swift and cruel, slicing Alessia into tiny pieces and shattering her faith in herself-and in him. Him. Her Mister.

I couldn't rescue my brother from the demons that drove him out on his motorbike into an icy night, but I can help this beautiful girl, this beautiful, brave girl.

We'd almost danced the dance so many times, but that night I resigned myself to fate, and with an unerring inevitably I fucked my brother's wife.

And though you think the world is at your feet, it can rise up and tread on you.

I've never had a moment's doubt. I love you. I believe in you completely. You are my dearest one. My reason for life.

It was not generally realized that what children mostly wanted was to be left alone.

Wasn't writing a kind of soaring, an achievable form of flight, of fancy, of the imagination?

A story was a form of telepathy. By means of inking symbols onto a page, she was able to send thoughts and feelings from her mind to her reader's. It was a magical process, so commonplace that no one stopped to wonder at it.

A person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn and not easily mended.

An diesem Morgen erwacht Jim Sams, der schlau ist, aber nicht gerade tief schürfend, aus unruhigen Träumen und findet sich verwandelt in eine riesige Kreatur. Vor dieser Nacht war Jim Sams noch eine Kakerlake, die irgendwo im langsam verfallenden Gemäuer des britischen Parlaments, des Palace of Westminster, lebte. Jetzt ist er plötzlich Mensch geworden, wacht in 10 Downing Street auf und ist Premierminister.

That morning, Jim Sams, clever but by no means profound, woke from uneasy dreams to find himself transformed into a gigantic creature.

Lying is the worst of all evils. Everything else that is diabolical comes from it.

Humanity seems doomed to do more evil than good. The greatest ideal on earth is human love.

The love of freedom is native to every human being and every nation, and cannot be suppressed in the long term. History teaches us that tyranny has never endured.

And now I was lonelier, I supposed, than anyone else in the world. Even Defoe's creation, Robinson Crusoe, the prototype of the ideal solitary, could hope to meet another human being. Crusoe cheered himself by thinking that such a thing could happen any day, and it kept him going. But if any of the people now around me came near I would need to run for it and hide in mortal terror. I had to be alone, entirely alone, if I wanted to live.

Why did this war have to happen at all? Because humanity had to be shown where its godlessness was taking it.

War. There was now no point in a war that might once have been justified as a search for free subsistence and living space – it had degenerated into vast, inhuman mass slaughter, negating all cultural values.

Es nützt niemandem, um Menschen zu trauern, die nicht mehr da sind. Sie kümmert es nicht; ihre Geschichte ist zu Ende.

Denn es ist gut, zuweilen Kind zu sein, und vorzüglich zu Weihnachten, da der Urheber dieses Festes selbst noch ein Kind war.

For it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child Himself.

Ich will Weihnachten in meinem Herzen ehren, ich will versuchen, es zu feiern. Ich will in der Vergangenheit, in der Gegenwart und in der Zukunft leben.

I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future.

I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul.

A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.

There is prodigious strength in sorrow and despair.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

Mr. Lorry wußte, daß Miß Proß sehr eifersüchtig war, hatte aber auch unter ihrer rauhen Oberfläche eines von jenen uneigennützigen Geschöpfe kennengelernt, die man nur unter dem Frauengeschlecht findet und die sich freiwillig aus lauterer Anhänglichkeit und Liebe sklavisch fesseln an die Jugend, die für sie entschwunden ist, an die Schönheit, die sie nie besaßen, an Vollkommenheit, die nie ein gutes Glück ihnen bescherte, und an glänzende Hoffnungen, die nie den düsteren Pfad ihres eigenen Lebens erhellten.

Mr. Lorry knew Miss Pross to be very jealous, but he also knew her by this time to be, beneath the service of her eccentricity, one of those unselfish creatures—found only among women—who will, for pure love and admiration, bind themselves willing slaves, to youth when they have lost it, to beauty that they never had, to accomplishments that they were never fortunate enough to gain, to bright hopes that never shone upon their own sombre lives.

Es war die beste und die schönste Zeit, ein Jahrhundert der Weisheit und des Unsinns, eine Epoche des Glaubens und des Unglaubens, eine Periode des Lichts und der Finsternis. Es war der Frühling der Hoffnung und der Winter des Verzweifelns. Wir hatten alles, wir hatten nichts vor uns; wir steuerten alle unmittelbar dem Himmel zu und auch alle unmittelbar in die entgegengesetzte Richtung – mit einem Wort, die Periode glich der unsrigen so wenig, daß ihre lärmendsten Tonangeber im Guten wie im Bösen nur den Superlativgrad des Vergleichens auf sie angewendet wissen wollten.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.

Glanzlos ging die Sonne auf; aber sie beschien nichts Traurigeres als diesen Mann von guten Anlagen und edlen Gefühlen, der seine Fähigkeiten nicht zu verwenden und sich selbst nicht zu helfen vermochte, sondern im Bewusstsein des an ihn haftenden Giftes sich darein ergab, vollends von ihm aufgezehrt zu werden.

Sadly, sadly, the sun rose; it rose upon no sadder sight than the man of good abilities and good emotions, incapable of their directed exercise, incapable of his own help and his own happiness, sensible of the blight on him, and resigning himself to let it eat him away.

Wenn du denkst, dass es nicht schlimmer kommen kann, es kann. Und wenn du denkst, dass es nicht mehr besser werden kann, es kann.

Just when you think it can't get any worse, it can. And just when you think it can't get any better, it can.

Um 'Ich liebe dich' zu sagen, muss man zuerst lernen, 'Ich' zu sagen.

To say 'I love you' one must know first how to say the 'I'.

'My dear fellow, who will let you?'
'That’s not the point. The point is, who will stop me?'

Vielleicht muss man die Dunkelheit kennen, um das Licht schätzen zu können.

Maybe you have to know the darkness before you can appreciate the light.

Aber es ist besser, von der Wahrheit verletzt als mit einer Lüge getröstet zu werden.

But better to get hurt by the truth than comforted with a lie.

Freedom (n.): To ask nothing. To expect nothing. To depend on nothing.

Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long.

Hab mal einen Witz gehört: Mann geht zum Arzt. Sagt, er ist deprimiert. Das Leben kommt ihm rau vor und herzlos. Sagt, er fühlt sich allein in einer bedrohlichen Welt. Arzt sagt, "Behandlung ist einfach! Der große Clown Paleacci ist in der Stadt. Gehen sie hin, wird sie aufheitern." Mann bricht in Tränen aus. "Aber Doktor", sagt er, "ich bin Paleacci!"

Heard joke once: Man goes to doctor. Says he's depressed. Says life seems harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain. Doctor says, 'Treatment is simple. Great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up.' Man bursts into tears. Says, 'But doctor...I am Pagliacci.

Man findet Diamanten nur im Dunkel der Erde und Wahrheiten nur in den Tiefen des Denkens.

Selbst die dunkelste Nacht wird enden und die Sonne wird aufgehen.

Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.

Ein Leben ohne Liebe ist wie ein Baum ohne Früchte.

A life without love is like a tree without fruit.