Ivan Klíma Professions : Novelist Born : September 14, 1931 Browse All Authors Top 15 quotes by Ivan Klíma I realised the amazing power of literature and of the human imagination generally: to make the dead live and to stop the living from dying. Ivan Klíma dying imagination literature The world is like an enormous set of scales. When evil begins to outweigh good, angels cram themselves in on the lighter side. You can't see them, but there they are, restoring the balance. Ivan Klíma balance angel evil If we lose our memory, we lose ourselves. Forgetting is one of the symptoms of death. Without memory we cease to be human beings. Ivan Klíma being-me forget memories Animals have one thing that puts them way ahead of people: they don't dissemble, and you don't have to pretend in front of them. Ivan Klíma animal people way Every few seconds a new book sees the light of day. Most of them will just be a part of the hum that makes us hard of hearing. Even the book is becoming an instrument of forgetting. A truly literary work comes into being as its creator's cry of protest against the forgetting that looms over him, over his predecessors and his contemporaries alike, and over his time, and the language he speaks. A literary work is something that defies death. Ivan Klíma light literature book ...there is little that comes so close to death as fulfilled love. Ivan Klíma close-to-death fulfilled littles Man is afraid to attain what he longs for, just as subconsciously he longs for what he is afraid of. Ivan Klíma men To destroy is easier than to create, and that is why so many people are ready to demonstrate against what they reject. But what would they say if one asked them what they wanted instead? Ivan Klíma easier ready people Justice was revenge wrapping itself in a cloak of high principle. Ivan Klíma principles revenge justice A picture was a motionless record of motion. An arrested representation of life. A picture was the kiss of death pretending to possess immutability. Ivan Klíma records kissing photography ..the writer's obsession - the desire to know and communicate, or, rather, to know everything so as to communicate with the greatest degree of precision. Ivan Klíma degrees obsession desire Fear is the touch of death, death reminding us of its existence. Ivan Klíma reminding existence fear Graveyards remind us of the vanity of all human endeavour. Ivan Klíma endeavour vanity death Most people can't imagine a life that is any different from the one they are actually living. They can dream about it, they can even go into the streets and demonstrate for it, but they still can't imagine what it would be like. Ivan Klíma dream life people If you tell anything to a woman ... it's like putting it in the papers. Ivan Klíma papers women paper Similar Authors Adam Johnson novelist Ivan Goncharov novelist Binnie Kirshenbaum novelist Bruce Jay Friedman novelist Buchi Emecheta novelist Bryce Courtenay novelist All Authors