Popular quotes
page 73
1984
Context: On albums and commercialism: "For every album I’ve ever made, I’ve written many times more music than has actually been released, and the way I choose which music appears is almost totally random, but one thing I have never done is to make music for the sake of commercialism... I don’t think it’s possible to guarantee commercial success for an album anyway, because nobody really knows what is commercial and what isn’t. Even if I went out of my way to make an album that was more accessible to the public, that would not guarantee its commercial success".
“To some, woman is heresy and diabolical. To me she is just the opposite.”
1880s, 1884, Letter to Theo (Nuenen, Oct. 1884)
Context: Oh, I am no friend of present-day Christianity, though its Founder was sublime - I have seen through present-day Christianity only too well. That icy coldness hypnotized even me, in my youth - but I have taken my revenge since then. How? By worshipping the love which they, the theologians, call sin, by respecting a whore [ Sien in The Hague ]), etc., and not too many would-be respectable, pious ladies. To some, woman is heresy and diabolical. To me she is just the opposite.
“With time, one learns that one’s work is never finished.”
Source: Manuel Raya Escritor. (2026, 21 marzo). ENTREVISTA AL ESCRITOR CHILENO JOSÉ BAROJA 🇨🇱✍🏼 [Vídeo]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBrHyubZCFM
“I always just thought if you see somebody without a smile, give'em yours!”
Variant: If you see someone without a smile give them yours.
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
Equinoctial Regions of America (1814-1829)
“IF THE ZOO BANS ME FOR HOLLERING AT THE ANIMALS I WILL FACE GOD AND WALK BACKWARDS INTO HELL”
[ Link to tweet https://twitter.com/dril/status/205052027259195393]
Tweets by year, 2012
“No man knows fully what has shaped his own thinking”
Source: Social Theory and Social Structure (1949), p. ix (1957 edition)
“For every book you buy, you should buy the time to read it.”
“The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.”
VI, 6
Variant: The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.
Source: Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book VI
“One writes from what one lives, but also from what hurts.”
Source: Manuel Raya Escritor. (2026, 21 marzo). ENTREVISTA AL ESCRITOR CHILENO JOSÉ BAROJA 🇨🇱✍🏼 [Vídeo]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBrHyubZCFM
“A writer has to be stubborn with the system.”
Source: Manuel Raya Escritor. (2026, 21 marzo). ENTREVISTA AL ESCRITOR CHILENO JOSÉ BAROJA 🇨🇱✍🏼 [Vídeo]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBrHyubZCFM