18 Quotes by Silvina Ocampo

Like Gabriela, she liked animals because they behaved in a natural way; if they were hungry they ate nonstop, if they were thirsty they drank until they were full, if they were in heat they made love desperately, if they were tired they slept at any hour of the day, if they were furious they bit or scratched or killed their enemy. It is true is that they also died and that dying is ridiculous, but they were so meticulous, so precise.

aAlina Cerunda was pretty despite her seventy years. Anyone who says she wasn't is a liar. However, old people always look like they're in disguise, and that ruins everything.

—¿No tenés amigos de infancia?—No me casé con los amigos de la infancia. Si ahora tengo poco discernimiento para elegirlos, ¿cómo habrán sido las equivocaciones de mis primeros años? Las amistades de infancia son erróneas, y no se puede ser fiel al erro indefinidamente.

Podré olvidar muchas experiencias de la vida, pero no las de la infancia. Siempre recuerdo aquel verso que dice: ¡Oh, infancia! ¡Oh, mi amiga! Y lo que importa en él es lo que no se dice. Nuestra infancia es ciertamente nuestra amiga, pero nosotros no fuimos amigos de nuestra infancia porque entonces no existíamos como somos ahora. Aquel ser desvalido que fuimos a veces nos conmueve porque nadie pudo comprenderlo del todo, salvo nosotros... que todavía no estábamos a su lado.

Children are like that, Irene often thought, for every small dose of happiness they give us, we have to swallow all the bitterness in the world. Men are like that too. That's how the world is.

The couple had only lived a short while in that village, and they were poor as rats. Leonarda's husband bought damaged cigarettes, personally extracted his own teeth, ate meat and polenta twice a week, drank mate from an earthenware mug, never took his wife to the movies, and when she was ill he took her to a veterinarian.

How short life would be if certain unpleasant moments didn't make it feel endless!

Gabriela has been dreaming about her and about a pair of shoes for quite some time.

On the surface, there is no distinction between our experiences—some are vivid, others opaque; some are pleasant, others cause agony upon recollection—but there is no way of knowing which are dreams and which are reality.