Clarice Lispector Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• All the world began with a yes. One molecule said yes to another molecule and life was born. But before prehistory there was the prehistory of the prehistory and there was the never and there was the yes. It was ever so. I don’t know why, but I do know that the universe never began.
  Make no mistake, I only achieve simplicity with enormous effort.

  Clarice Lispector

  Mistake, Simplicity, Effort

  19 Copy quote

• I have grown weary of literature: silence alone comforts me. If I continue to write, it’s because I have nothing more to accomplish in this world except to wait for death. Searching for the word in darkness. Any little success invades me and puts me in full view of everyone. I long to wallow in the mud. I can scarcely control my need for self-abasement, my craving for licentiousness and debauchery. Sin tempts me, forbidden pleasures lure me. I want to be both pig and hen, then kill them and drink their blood.

  Clarice Lispector

  Writing, Pigs, Self

  Clarice Lispector (1986). “The Hour of the Star”, p.70, New Directions Publishing

  40 Copy quote

• What I want is to live of that initial and primordial something that was what made some things reach the point of aspiring to be human.

  Clarice Lispector

  Want, Made, Humans

  41 Copy quote

• Ela acreditava em anjo e, porque acreditava, eles existiam" | "She believed in angels, and, because she believed, they existed

  Clarice Lispector

  Believe, Angel, Ems

  13 Copy quote

• But I welcome the darkness where the two eyes of that soft panther glow. The darkness is my cultural broth. The enchanted darkness. I go on speaking to you, risking disconnection: I’m subterraneously unattainable because of what I know.

  Clarice Lispector

  Eye, Two, Darkness

  Clarice Lispector (1989). “Agua Viva”, p.20, U of Minnesota Press

  30 Copy quote

• A horse is freedom so indominable that it becomes useless to imprison it to serve man: it lets itself be domesticated, but with a simple, rebellious toss of the head-shaking its mane like an abundance of free-flowing hair-it shows that its inner nature is always wild, translucent and free.

  Clarice Lispector

  Horse, Simple, Men

  Clarice Lispector (1989). “Soulstorm: Stories”, p.106, New Directions Publishing

  28 Copy quote

• Love is so much more deadly than I had thought, love is so much inherent as the very lack, and we are guaranteed by a need to be renewed continuously. Love is now, is forever. There is just the blow of grace - call it passion.

  Clarice Lispector

  Passion, Blow, Love Is

  26 Copy quote

• For one has the right to shout. So, I am shouting.

  Clarice Lispector

  Shouting

  11 Copy quote

• I' is merely one of the world's instantaneous spasms.

  Clarice Lispector

  World, Instantaneous

  18 Copy quote

• Holding someone's hand was always my idea of joy.

  Clarice Lispector

  Hands, Ideas, Joy

  16 Copy quote

• I hear the mad song of a little bird and crush butterflies between my fingers.

  Clarice Lispector

  Crush, Song, Butterfly

  Clarice Lispector (2012). “Água Viva”, p.60, New Directions Publishing

  15 Copy quote

• And I want to be held down. I don't know what to do with the horrifying freedom that can destroy me.

  Clarice Lispector

  Want, Knows

  Clarice Lispector (1988). “The Passion According to G.H.”, p.5, U of Minnesota Press

  18 Copy quote

• And now -- now it only remains for me to light a cigarette and go home. Dear God, only now am I remembering that people die. Does that include me? Don't forget, in the meantime, that this is the season for strawberries. Yes.

  Clarice Lispector

  Home, Light, People

  16 Copy quote

• Reality prior to my language exists as an unthinkable thought. . . . life precedes love, bodily matter precedes the body, and one day in its turn language shall have preceded possession of silence.

  Clarice Lispector

  Reality, Silence, One Day

  Clarice Lispector (1988). “The Passion According to G.H.”, p.169, U of Minnesota Press

  18 Copy quote

• How was she to tie herself to a man without permitting him to imprison her? And was there some means of acquiring things without those things possessing her?

  Clarice Lispector

  Mean, Men, Ties

  Clarice Lispector (1990). “Near to the Wild Heart”, p.29, New Directions Publishing

  29 Copy quote

• And even sadness was also something for rich people, for people who could afford it, for people who didn't have anything better to do. Sadness was a luxury.

  Clarice Lispector

  Sadness, Luxury, People

  Clarice Lispector (2017). “Hour of the Star”, p.50, Penguin UK

  21 Copy quote

• So long as I have questions to which there are no answers, I shall go on writing.

  Clarice Lispector

  Writing, Long, Answers

  Clarice Lispector (1986). “The Hour of the Star”, p.11, New Directions Publishing

  17 Copy quote

• I want the following word: splendor, splendor is fruit in all its succulence, fruit without sadness. I want vast distances. My savage intuition of myself.

  Clarice Lispector

  Distance, Sadness, Intuition

  Clarice Lispector (1989). “Agua Viva”, p.17, U of Minnesota Press

  21 Copy quote

• I write as if to save somebody’s life. Probably my own. Life is a kind of madness that death makes. Long live the dead because we live in them.

  Clarice Lispector

  Writing, Long, Madness

  Clarice Lispector, Johnny Lorenz, Benjamin Moser (2012). “A Breath of Life”, p.19, New Directions Publishing

  10 Copy quote

• For at the hour of death you became a celebrated film star, it is a moment of glory for everyone, when the choral music scales the top notes.

  Clarice Lispector

  Stars, Film, Moments

  Clarice Lispector (1986). “The Hour of the Star”, p.28, New Directions Publishing

  9 Copy quote

• I, who called love my hope for love.

  Clarice Lispector

  Hope Love

  Clarice Lispector (2012). “The Passion According to G.H.”, p.99, New Directions Publishing

  7 Copy quote

• Ignorance of the law of irreducibility was no excuse. I could no longer excuse myself with the claim that I didn't know the law -- for knowledge of self and of the world is the law that, even though unattainable, cannot be broken, and no one can excuse himself by saying that he doesn't know it. . . . The renewed originality of the sin is this: I have to carry out my unknowing, I shall be sinning originally against life.

  Clarice Lispector

  Ignorance, Self, Law

  7 Copy quote

• Today at school I wrote an essay about Flag Day which was so beautiful, but ever so beautiful - for I even used words without really knowing what they meant.

  Clarice Lispector

  Beautiful, School, Knowing

  Clarice Lispector, Giovanni Pontiero (1996). “Descoberta Do Mundo”, p.161, New Directions Publishing

  13 Copy quote

• I ask myself: is every story that has ever been written in this world, a story of suffering and affliction?

  Clarice Lispector

  Suffering, Stories, World

  8 Copy quote

• Brazil is where I have to be, where I have my roots.

  Clarice Lispector

  Roots, Brazil

  6 Copy quote

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