Quotes from book

Speak, Memory

“I have rewritten — often several times — every word I have ever published. My pencils outlast their erasers.”

“a person hoping to become a poet must have the capacity of thinking of several things at a time.”

“I see again my schoolroom in Vyra, the blue roses of the wallpaper, the open window.… Everything is as it should be, nothing will ever change, nobody will ever die.”

“How small the cosmos (a kangaroo's pouch would hold it), how paltry and puny in comparison to human consciousness, to a single individual recollection, and its expression in words!”

“Sleep is the most moronic fraternity in the world, with the heaviest dues and the crudest rituals. It is a mental torture I find debasing… I simply cannot get used to the nightly betrayal of reason, humanity, genius.”

“One is always at home in one's past…”