- I think of no one any more. I don't even bother looking for words. It flows in me, more or less quickly. I fix nothing, I let it go. Through the lack of attaching myself to words, my thoughts remain nebulous most of the time. They sketch vague, pleasant shapes and then are swallowed up: I forget them almost immediately.
- The thing is that I rarely think; a crowd of small metamorphoses accumulate in me without my noticing it, and then, one fine day, a veritable revolution takes place. This is what has given my life such a jerky, incoherent aspect.
- A man rarely feels like laughing alone: the whole thing was animated enough for me, but it was a strong, yet pure sensation. Then everything came asunder, there was nothing left but the lantern, and the palisade in the sky; it was still rather beautiful.
- I would like to take a hold of myself: an acute, vivid sensation would deliver me.
- Nausea: it spreads at the bottom of the viscous puddle, at the bottom of our time-the time of pure suspenders and broken chair seats; it is made of wide, soft instants, spreading at the edge, like an oil stain. No sooner than born, it is already old,it seems as though I have known it for twenty years.
- What astonishes me is to feel so sad and exhausted.
- Something is beginning in order to end: adventure does not let itself be drawn out; it only makes sense when dead. I am drawn, irrevocably, towards this death which is perhaps mine as well. Each instant appears only as a part of a sequence.
- "yes? is that what you wanted? well, that's exactly what you've never had (remember you fooled yourself with words, you called the glitter of travel, the love of women, quarrels, and trinkets adventure) and this is what you'll never have--and no one other than yourself. "
- Nothing happens while you live. The scenery changes, people come in and go out, that's all. There are no beginnings. Days are tacked on to days without rhyme or reason, an interminable, monotonous addition. From time to time you make a semi-total: you say: I've been traveling for three years, I've been in Bouville for three years. Neither is there any end: you never leave a woman, friend, a city in one go. And then everything looks alike: Shanghai, Moscow, Algiers, everything is the same after two weeks. There are moments--rarely--when you make a landmark, you realize that you're going with a woman, in some messy business. The time of a flash. And after that, the procession starts again, you begin to add up hours and days: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. April, May, June. 1924, 1925, 1926.
- I wanted the moments of my life to follow and order themselves like those of a life remembers. You might as well try and catch time by the tail.
- You talk a lot about this amazing flow of time but you hardly see it...But there are moments when you think you see her grow old and feel yourself growing old with her: this is the feeling of adventure.
- Must not think too much about the value of History. You run the risk being disgusted with it.
- After all, you have to kill time. They are young and well built, they have enough to last them another thirty years. So they're in no hurry, they delay and they re not wrong. Once they have slept together they will have to find something else to veil the enormous absurdity of their existence.
nov 26 2010 ∞
feb 1 2014 +
feb 1 2014 +