„In some lost fold of the past, we wanted to be lions and we're no more than castrated cats“
— Roberto Bolaño, book The Savage Detectives
Source: The Savage Detectives
Roberto Bolaño quotes
49 5
Roberto Bolaño
Birthdate: 28. April 1953
Date of death: 15. July 2003
Other names: რობერტო ბოლანიო
Roberto Bolaño Ávalos was a Chilean novelist, short-story writer, poet and essayist. In 1999, Bolaño won the Rómulo Gallegos Prize for his novel Los detectives salvajes , and in 2008 he was posthumously awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction for his novel 2666, which was described by board member Marcela Valdes as a "work so rich and dazzling that it will surely draw readers and scholars for ages". The New York Times described him as "the most significant Latin American literary voice of his generation". Wikipedia
Photo: Farisori, Own work / CC BY-SA 3.0
Works
Amulet
Roberto Bolaño
The Skating Rink
Roberto Bolaño
The Insufferable Gaucho
Roberto Bolaño
By Night in Chile
Roberto BolañoQuotes Roberto Bolaño
"Meeting with Enrique Lihn" (The New Yorker,December 22, 2008)
Context: Literature was a vast minefield occupied by enemies, except for a few classic authors (just a few), and every day I had to walk through that minefield, where any false move could be fatal, with only the poems of Archilochus to guide me. It’s like that for all young writers. There comes a time when you have no support, not even from friends, forget about mentors, and there’s no one to give you a hand; publication, prizes, and grants are reserved for the others, the ones who said “Yes, sir,” over and over, or those who praised the literary mandarins, a never-ending horde distinguished only by their aptitude for discipline and punishment — nothing escapes them and they forgive nothing.
Entre Paréntesis (2004) edited by Ignacio Echevarría, p. 223
„The Eye never said good-bye to anyone. I never said good-bye to anyone either.“
— Roberto Bolaño, book Last Evenings on Earth
Mauricio ('The Eye') Silva
Last Evenings on Earth (2006)
Context: One day I heard that The Eye had left Mexico. I wasn't surprised that he hadn't said good-bye. The Eye never said good-bye to anyone. I never said good-bye to anyone either.
"Meeting with Enrique Lihn" (The New Yorker,December 22, 2008)
Context: Literature was a vast minefield occupied by enemies, except for a few classic authors (just a few), and every day I had to walk through that minefield, where any false move could be fatal, with only the poems of Archilochus to guide me. It’s like that for all young writers. There comes a time when you have no support, not even from friends, forget about mentors, and there’s no one to give you a hand; publication, prizes, and grants are reserved for the others, the ones who said “Yes, sir,” over and over, or those who praised the literary mandarins, a never-ending horde distinguished only by their aptitude for discipline and punishment — nothing escapes them and they forgive nothing.
„If you're going to say what you want to say, you're going to hear what you don't want to hear.“
— Roberto Bolaño, book The Insufferable Gaucho
Source: The Insufferable Gaucho
— Roberto Bolaño, book The Savage Detectives
Source: The Savage Detectives
— Roberto Bolaño, book Last Evenings on Earth
Dentist
Source: Last Evenings on Earth (2006)
„we interpret life at moments of the deepest desperation.“
— Roberto Bolaño, book The Savage Detectives
Source: The Savage Detectives
„Poetry and prison have always been neighbors.“
— Roberto Bolaño, book The Savage Detectives
Source: The Savage Detectives
„I'm an educated man, the prisons I know are subtle ones.“
— Roberto Bolaño, book The Savage Detectives
Source: The Savage Detectives
