213 Quotes by Roberto Bolano

Does this mean that in some places I'm American and in some places I'm African American and in other places, by logical extension, I'm nobody?

... Auxilio, they'd say, that's enough bustling around, Auxilio, leave those papers alone, woman, dust and literature have always gone together.

I wrote this book for the ghosts, who, because they're outside of time, are the only ones with time. After the last rereading (just now), I realize that time isn't the only thing that matters, time isn't the only source of terror. Pleasure can be terrifying too, and so can courage.

The pain, or the memory of pain, that here was literally sucked away by something nameless until only a void was left. The knowledge that this question was possible: pain that turns finally into emptiness. The knowledge that the same equation applied to everything, more or less.

Toda vida, le dijo esa noche Epifanio a Lalo Cura, por más feliz que sea, acaba siempre en dolor y sufrimiento. Depende, dijo Lalo Cura. ¿Depende de qué, buey? De muchas cosas, dijo Lalo Cura. Si te pegan un balazo en la nuca, por ejemplo, y el pinche asesino se acerca sin que lo escuches, te vas al otro mundo sin dolor y sin sufrimiento. Pinche escuincle, dijo Epifanio. ¿A ti han pegado muchos tiros en la nuca?

If you're going to say what you want to say, you're going to hear what you don't want to hear.

Lo que no puede ser no puede ser y además es imposible.

I’m seventeen years old, my name is Juan García Madero, and I’m in my first semester of law school. I wanted to study literature, not law, but my uncle insisted, and in the end I gave in. I’m an orphan, and someday I’ll be a lawyer. That’s what I told my aunt and uncle, and then I shut myself in my room and cried all night.

La poesía chilena, dijo Bibiano aquella noche, va a cambiar el día que leamos correctamente a Enrique Lihn, no antes.