It's beyond the grasp of anyone's memory to recall conversations in kind of [memoir] detail. So it's fake. It's all made up. Paul Auster More Quotes by Paul Auster More Quotes From Paul Auster I guess the toughest things in translations are word play, which can never be reproduced exactly. Paul Auster translations play I don't like talking about my work at all. I find it very difficult. I never know what to say. It's too close to me, and there's so many things happening unconsciously while I'm working that I'm not aware of, and people will point these things out to me, and I'll say, "That's interesting." But I don't know what to make of it. Paul Auster talking people interesting I don't like pictures in books. I feel that the pictures diminish the words, and the words diminish the pictures, and it doesn't work. Paul Auster diminish feels book The mental state I'm in is completely different, but the act of trying to write is the same. I mean, in all instances you try to write good sentences. But in a novel you're free to do whatever you want, and in the autobiographical works you can't make things up. Paul Auster writing trying mean We are continually shaped by the forces of coincidence. Paul Auster force coincidence To care about words, to have a stake in what is written, to believe in the power of books - this overwhelms the rest, and beside it one's life becomes very small. Paul Auster writing believe book Stories happen only to those who are able to tell them, someone once said. In the same way, perhaps, experiences present themselves only to those who are able to have them. Paul Auster able stories way Betty died of a broken heart. Some people laugh when they hear that phrase, but that's because they don't know anything about the world. People die of broken hearts. It happens every day, and it will go on happening to the end of time. Paul Auster broken heart people As long as a man had the courage to reject what society told him to do, he could live life on his own terms. To what end? To be free. But free to what end? To read books, to write books, to think. Paul Auster live-life writing book Then, without any warning, we both straightened up, turned towards each other, and began to kiss. After that, it is difficult for me to speak of what happened. Such things have little to do with words, so little, in fact, that it seems almost pointless to try to express them. If anything, I would say that we were falling into each other, that we were falling so fast and so far that nothing could catch us. Paul Auster kissing trying fall but even the facts do not always tell the truth Paul Auster telling-the-truth facts All children are love children, he said, but only the best ones are ever called that. Paul Auster children-love said children Solitary. But not in the sense of being alone. Not solitary in the way Thoreau was, for example, exiling himself in order to find out where he was; not solitary in the way Jonah was, praying for deliverance in the belly of the whale. Solitary in the sense of retreat. In the sense of not having to see himself, of not having to see himself being seen by anyone else. Paul Auster whales example order Farts come from no one and nowhere; they are anonymous emanations that belong to the group as a whole, and even when every person in the room can point to the culprit, the only sane course of action is denial. Paul Auster denial groups rooms Our lives carry us along in ways we cannot control, and almost nothing stays with us. It dies when we do, and death is something that happens to us every day. Paul Auster dies happens way He would conclude that nothing was real except chance. Paul Auster chance real ...once you fell in love with her, you loved her until the day you died. Paul Auster died Just think it, and chances are it will happen. Paul Auster chances-are chance thinking it's a rare day when she speaks in anything but platitudes--all those exhausted phrases and hand-me-down ideas that cram the dump sites of contemporary wisdom Paul Auster life hands ideas That's all I've ever dreamed of, Mr. Bones. To make the world a better place. To bring some beauty to the drab humdrum corners of the soul. You can do it with a toaster, you can do it with a poem, you can do it by reaching out your hand to a stranger. It doesn't matter what form it takes. To leave the world a little better than you found it. That's the best a man can ever do. Paul Auster soul men hands
