“It’s one thing if everyone wears the same shoes or drinks the same soda. But the world of literature is the last place in which globalization should mean homogeneity.”

The pure and the obscene, and shows, in this discomfiting, hypnotic work, just how rarely those categories are what they seem. The translation is excellent – what a rare relief.

I studied mathematics which is the madness of reason.

Vocation is different from talent. One can have vocation and not have talent; one can be called and not know how to go.

Like her friend and admirer Clarice Lispector, Hilda Hilst was a passionate explorer of the sacred and the profane.

I love it when someone insults me. That means that I don’t have to be nice anymore.

Work is the means of living, but it is not living.

I mean, stand up you’re by yourself and it’s live and when you’re acting, unless you’re doing a monologue, you’re interacting with somebody else. Even if you’re doing a monologue you’re saying it to somebody and it’s not live so you can do it a few times.

Courage doesn’t mean we’re not afraid anymore, it just means our actions aren’t controlled by our doubts.

The tragedy of life is not found in failure but complacency. Not in you doing too much, but doing too little. Not in you living above your means, but below your capacity. It’s not failure but aiming too low, that is life’s greatest tragedy.

Humility means one does not impose his conceptions upon others and he is fully dependent on the mercy of the Lord.

When my bed is empty, Makes me feel awful mean and blue. My springs are getting rusty, Living single like I do.

Every Day Is for the Thief is a vivid, episodic evocation of the truism that you can’t go home again; but that doesn’t mean you’re not free to try.