Bohumil Hrabal Quotes

• Because when I read, I don't really read; I pop a beautiful sentence into my mouth and suck it like a fruit drop, or I sip it like a liqeur until the thought dissolves in me like alcohol, infusing brain and heart and coursing on through the veins to the root of each blood vessel.

  Bohumil Hrabal

  Beautiful, Heart, Blood

  Bohumil Hrabal (1992). “Too Loud a Solitude”, p.4, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  53 Copy quote

• I was always lucky in my bad luck.

  Bohumil Hrabal

  Luck, Lucky, Bad Luck

  Bohumil Hrabal (2007). “I Served the King of England (New Directions Classic)”, p.83, New Directions Publishing

  14 Copy quote

• I can be by myself because I'm never lonely, I'm simply alone, living in my heavily populated solitude, a harum-scarum of infinity and eternity, and Infinity and Eternity seem to take a liking to the likes of me.

  Bohumil Hrabal

  Lonely, Solitude, Likes

  Bohumil Hrabal (1992). “Too Loud a Solitude”, p.9, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  14 Copy quote

• It's interesting how young poets think of death while old fogies think of girls.

  Bohumil Hrabal

  Girl, Thinking, Interesting

  Bohumil Hrabal (2012). “Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age”, p.40, New York Review of Books

  21 Copy quote

• No book worth its salt is meant to put you to sleep, it's meant to make you jump out of your bed in your underwear and run and beat the author's brains out.

  Bohumil Hrabal

  Running, Book, Writing

  18 Copy quote

• I always loved twilight: it was the only time of day I had the feeling that something important could happen. All things were more beautiful bathed in twilight, all streets, all squares, and all the people walking through them; I even had the feeling that I was a handsome young man, and I liked looking at myself in the mirror, watching myself in the shop windows as I strode along, and even when I touched my face, I felt no wrinkles at my mouth or forehead.

  Bohumil Hrabal

  Beautiful, Twilight, Men

  Bohumil Hrabal (1992). “Too Loud a Solitude”, p.41, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  21 Copy quote

• To spend our days betting on three-legged horses with beautiful names

  Bohumil Hrabal

  Beautiful, Horse, Names

  11 Copy quote

• He was a gentle and sensitive soul, and therefore had a short temper, which is why he went straight after everything with an ax.

  Bohumil Hrabal

  Soul, Sensitive, Temper

  Bohumil Hrabal (2007). “I Served the King of England (New Directions Classic)”, p.85, New Directions Publishing

  23 Copy quote

• Lost in my dreams, I somehow cross at the traffic signals, bumping into street lamps or people, yet moving onward, exuding fumes of beer and grime, yet smiling, because my briefcase is full of books and that very night I expect them to tell me things about myself I don't know.

  Bohumil Hrabal

  Dream, Moving, Book

  Bohumil Hrabal (1992). “Too Loud a Solitude”, p.8, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  12 Copy quote

• I pop a beautiful sentence into my mouth and suck it like a fruit drop.

  Bohumil Hrabal

  Beautiful, Mouths, Fruit

  Bohumil Hrabal (1992). “Too Loud a Solitude”, p.4, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  17 Copy quote

• I expect them to tell me things about myself I don't know.

  Bohumil Hrabal

  Briefcases, Grime, Knows

  Bohumil Hrabal (1992). “Too Loud a Solitude”, p.8, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  10 Copy quote

• And so everything I see in this world, it all moves backward and forward at the same time, like a black-smith's bellows, like everything in my press, turning into its opposite at the command of the red and green buttons, and that's what makes the world go round.

  Bohumil Hrabal

  Moving, Opposites, Black

  Bohumil Hrabal (1992). “Too Loud a Solitude”, p.35, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

• ... because real thoughts come from outside and travel with us like the noodle soup we take to work; in other words, inquisitors burn books in vain. If a book has anything to say, it burns with a quiet laugh, because any book worth its salt points up and out of itself.

  Bohumil Hrabal

  Real, Book, Laughing

  Bohumil Hrabal (1992). “Too Loud a Solitude”, p.4, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  7 Copy quote

• Today's Gypsies, who have lived in Prague for only two generations, light a ritual fire wherever they work, a nomads' fire crackling only for the joy of it, a blaze of roughhewn wood like a child's laugh, a symbol of the eternity that preceded human thought, a free fire, a gift from heaven, a living sign of the elements unnoticed by the world-weary pedestrian, a fire in the ditches of Prague warming the wanderer's eye and soul.

  Bohumil Hrabal

  Children, Eye, Fire

  11 Copy quote

• As I helped him up, I felt him shake all over, so I asked him to forgive me, without knowing what for, but that was my lot, asking forgiveness, I even asked forgiveness of myself for being what I was, what it was my nature to be.

  Bohumil Hrabal

  Knowing, Forgive Me, Forgiving

  9 Copy quote

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