144 Quotes by Elizabeth Kostova

I believe in walking out of a museum before the paintings you’ve seen begin to run together. How else can you carry anything away with you in your mind’s eye?

I’ve retrained myself since childhood into a kind of diligent goodwill toward life. Life and I became friends some years ago – not the sort of exciting friendship I longed for as a child, but a kindly truce, a pleasure in coming home.

I wasn’t brought up to be dazzled by money or fame.

What comes to your mind when you think of the word Transylvania, if you ponder it at all? What comes to my mind are mountains of savage beauty, ancient castles, werewolves, and witches – a land of magical obscurity. How, in short, am I to believe I will still be in Europe, on entering such a realm? I shall let you know if it’s Europe or fairyland, when I get there. First, Snagov – I set out tomorrow.

Another corner was dedicated to alchemy, another to witchcraft, another to philosophy of the most disturbing sort.

Bulgarians eat tarator every single day in summer. They think of it as salad although we’d call it a soup. You can make it as thick or thin as you like depending on how much water you add. It’s very practical in summer because yogurt cools the body faster than water, but the water hydrates you.

It was the beginning of that long bifurcation that became my life: Obey and hate yourself, survive. Disobey, redeem yourself, perish.

Manchmal gibt es kaum etwas Schwierigeres, als zu jemandem zu sprechen, der ueber die Macht des Schweigens verfuegt.

Didn’t Catholicism deal with blood and resurrected flesh on a daily basis? Wasn’t it expert in superstition? I somehow doubted that the hospitable plain Protestant chapels that dotted the university could be much help; they didn’t look qualified to wrestle with the undead. I felt sure those big square Puritan churches on the town green would be helpless in the face of a European vampire. A little witch burning was more in their line – something limited to the neighbors.