The more a book is like an opium pipe, the more the Chinaman reader is satisfied with it and tends to discuss the quality of the drug rather than its lethargic effects. Julio Cortazar More Quotes by Julio Cortazar More Quotes From Julio Cortazar I think we all have a little bit of that beautiful madness that keeps us walking when everything around us is so insanely sane. Julio Cortazar littlesbeautifulthinking What most people call loving consists of picking out a woman and marrying her. They pick her out, I swear, I’ve seen them. As if you could pick in love, as if it were not a lightning bolt that splits your bones and leaves you staked out in the middle of the courtyard. They probably say that they pick her out because-they-love-her, I think it’s just the siteoppo. Beatrice wasn’t picked out, Juliet wasn’t picked out. You don’t pick out the rain that soaks you to a skin when you come out of a concert. Julio Cortazar rainlifethinking Come sleep with me: We won't make Love,Love will make us. Julio Cortazar sleeploverelationship Of all our feelings the only one which really doesn't belong to us is hope. Hope belongs to life, it's life itself defending itself. Etcetera. Julio Cortazar hopscotchetceterafeelings Only in dreams, in poetry, in play do we sometimes arrive at what we were before we were this thing that, who knows, we are. Julio Cortazar dreamplaysometimes But what is memory if not the language of feeling, a dictionary of faces and days and smells which repeat themselves like the verbs and adjectives in a speech, sneaking in behind the thing itself,into the pure present, making us sad or teaching us vicariously. Julio Cortazar smellteachingmemories All profound distraction opens certain doors. You have to allow yourself to be distracted when you are unable to concentrate. Julio Cortazar distractiondoorsprofound The evolution from happiness to habit is one of death's best weapons. Julio Cortazar habitevolutionweapons In quoting others, we cite ourselves. Julio Cortazar citingquotingsoul I sometimes longed for someone who, like me, had not adjusted perfectly with his age, and such a person was hard to find; but I soon discovered cats, in which I could imagine a condition like mine, and books, where I found it quite often. Julio Cortazar catagebook Only by living absurdly is it possible to break out of this infinite absurdity. Julio Cortazar infinitebreak-outbreak Time is born in the eyes, everybody knows that. Julio Cortazar borneyetime Memory is a mirror that scandalously lies. Julio Cortazar memorieslyingpast She would smile and show no surprise, convinced as she was, the same as I, that casual meetings are apt to be just the opposite, and that people who make dates are the same kind who need lines on their writing paper, or who always squeeze up from the bottom on a tube of toothpaste. Julio Cortazar oppositeswritinglife As if you could pick in love, as if it were not a lightning bolt that splits your bones and leaves you staked out in the middle of the courtyard. (...) You don't pick out the rain that soaks you to the skin when you come out of a concert. Julio Cortazar lightningskinsrain I'm such a jerk; it had never occurred to me that when we look at a photo from the front, the eyes reproduce exactly the position and the vision of the lens; it's these things that are taken for granted and it never occurs to anyone to think about them. Julio Cortazar eyetakenthinking I realized that searching was my symbol, the emblem of those who go out at night with nothing in mind, the motives of a destroyer of compasses. Julio Cortazar compassmindnight The novel wins by points, the short story by knockout. Julio Cortazar knockoutsstorieswinning We know that attention acts as a lightning rod. Merely by concentrating on something one causes endless analogies to collect around it, even penetrate the boundaries of the subject itself: an experience that we call coincidence, serendipity – the terminology is extensive. My experience has been that in these circular travels what is really significant surrounds a central absence, an absence that, paradoxically, is the text being written or to be written. Julio Cortazar serendipitylightningattention A short story relies on those values that make poetry and jazz what they are: tension, rhythms, inner beat, into unforeseen within foreseen parameters Julio Cortazar beatsjazzstories
