Quotes from book

The Angel's Game

“I've always said that idleness dulls the spirit. We have to keep the brain busy, or at least the hands if we don't have a brain.”

“Every work of art is aggressive, Isabella. And every artist's life is a small war or a large one, beginning with oneself and one's limitations. To achieve anything you must first have ambition and then talent, knowledge, and finally the opportunity.”

“The most despicable humans are the ones who always feel virtuous and look down on the rest of the world.”

“May I offer you something? A small glass of cyanide?”

“We think we understand a song's lyrics but what makes us believe in them, or not, is the music”

“You end up becoming someone you see in the eyes of those you love.”

“It seems that in the advanced stages of stupidity, a lack of ideas is compensated for by an excess of ideologies.”

“Nothing is fair. The most one can hope is for things to be logical. Justice is a rare illness in a world that is otherwise a picture of health.”

“I think you judge yourself too severely, a quality that always distinguishes people of true worth.”

“I turned you into a stranger in order to forget you and now I'm the stranger.”

“I'm not talking to anyone, I'm delivering a monologue. It's the inebriated man's prerogative.”

“Human beings believe just as they breathe - in order to survive.”

“I decided that my existence would be one of books and silence.”

“It's curious how easy it is to tell a piece of paper what you don't dare say to someone's face.”

“Literature, at least good literature, is science tempered with the blood of art. Like architecture or music.”

“Nothing important is learned; it is simply remembered.”

“We all give up great expectations along the way.”

“The only way you can truly get to know an author is through the trail of ink he leaves behind him. The person you think you see is only an empty character: truth is always hidden in fiction.”

“Over time, loneliness gets inside you and doesn't go away.”