Paul Auster Quotes (9 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

Works

The Book of Illusions

Paul Auster

Oracle Night

Paul Auster

The New York Trilogy

Paul Auster

Paul Auster: 9 quotes 1 like

Famous Paul Auster Quotes

“Men don't begin to live fully until their backs are against the wall.”

Paul Auster book The Book of Illusions

The Book of Illusions (2002)

“That's what makes his story so impossible, David. Because he's told me the truth. (Alma to David on Hector)”

Paul Auster book The Book of Illusions

The Book of Illusions (2002)

“[G]overnments always need enemies, even when they're not at war. If you don't have a real enemy, you make one up and spread the word. It scares the population, and when the people are scared, they tend not to step out of line.”

Paul Auster book Oracle Night

Paul Auster, Oracle Night, New York: Henry Holt and Company, p. 168.
Oracle Night (2003)

“The story is not in the words; it's in the struggle.”

Paul Auster The New York Trilogy

"The Locked Room", p. 294
The New York Trilogy (1987)

“For only the good doubt their own goodness, which is what makes them good in the first place. The bad know they are good, but the good know nothing. They spend their lives forgiving others, but they can't forgive themselves.”

Paul Auster

Paul Auster, Man In The Dark, New York: Henry Holt and Company, p. 63.
Man In The Dark (2008)

“Every time my nose gushed blood, I felt like a little boy who'd wet his pants. I jumped out of the chair, pressed a handkerchief against my face, and hustled toward the nearest bathroom […] How red the blood looked against the whiteness of the porcelain sink, I thought. How vividly imagined that color was, how aesthetically shocking. The other fluids that came out of us were dull in comparison, the palest of squirts. Whitish spittle, milky semen, yellow pee, green-brown mucus. We excreted autumn and winter colors, but running invisibly through our veins, the very stuff that kept us alive, was the crimson of a mad artist—a red as brilliant as fresh paint.”

Paul Auster book Oracle Night

Paul Auster, Oracle Night, New York: Henry Holt and Company, pp. 41-42.
Oracle Night (2003)

“April 1945. My unit was in Germany, and we were the ones who liberated Dachau. Thirty thousands breathing skeletons. You've seen the pictures, but the pictures don't tell you what it was like. You have to go there and smell it for yourself; you have to be there and touch it with your own hands. Human beings did it to human beings, and they did it with a clear conscience. That was the end of mankind […] I'm sure you've read the stories about how some of them couldn't stop eating. The starved ones. They'd thought about food for so long, they couldn't help it. They ate until their stomachs burst, and they died. Hundreds of them.”

Paul Auster book Oracle Night

Paul Auster, Oracle Night, New York: Henry Holt and Company, p. 92.
Oracle Night (2003)

“If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it fall, does it make a sound or not? Hector had read alot of books by then, he knew all the tricks and arguments of the philosophers. If someone makes a movie and no one sees it, does the movie exist or not?”

Paul Auster book The Book of Illusions

The Book of Illusions (2002)

“I didn't say I was afraid of dying, I answered, I said that I was afraid to get on a plane. There is a difference.”

Paul Auster book The Book of Illusions

David to Dr. Singh
The Book of Illusions (2002)

Similar authors

Christopher Morley 30

American journalist, novelist, essayist and poet

Herta Müller 28

German-Romanian novelist, poet and essayist

Marcel Proust 41

French novelist, critic, and essayist

Jacques Prevért 12

French poet, screenwriter

Paul Valéry 89

French poet, essayist, and philosopher

Maurice Maeterlinck 21

Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist

Cesare Pavese 137

Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator

Mario Benedetti 4

Uruguayan journalist, novelist, and poet

George Raymond Richard Martin 35

American writer, screenwriter and television producer

Orhan Pamuk 55

Turkish novelist, screenwriter, and Nobel Prize in Literatu…

Similar authors

Christopher Morley 30

American journalist, novelist, essayist and poet

Herta Müller 28

German-Romanian novelist, poet and essayist

Marcel Proust 41

French novelist, critic, and essayist

Jacques Prevért 12

French poet, screenwriter

Paul Valéry 89

French poet, essayist, and philosopher