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When people read his books they have an uncontrollable desire to hang the author in the town square. I can’t think of a higher honor for a writer.

Roberto Bolano

If I were to say what I really think I would be arrested or shut away in a lunatic asylum. Come on, I am sure that it would be the same for everyone.
ROBERTO BOLANO

Arrest Myself Retard Thinking
Poetry is the one thing that isn’t contaminated, the one thing that isn’t part of the game.
ROBERTO BOLANO

Contamination Game Poetry
For her, reading was directly linked to pleasure, not to knowledge or enigmas or constructions or verbal labyrinths.
ROBERTO BOLANO

Construction Knowledge Pleasure Reading Verbal
I kept having dreams all night. I thought they were touching me with their fingers. But dreams don’t have fingers, they have fists, so it must have been scorpions.
ROBERTO BOLANO

Dreams Fingers Thinking Touching
I’d obviously never heard of the group, but my ignorance in literary matters is to blame for that (every book in the world is out there waiting to be read by me).
ROBERTO BOLANO

Group Ignorance Myself Reading World
Being alone makes us stronger. That’s the honest truth. But it’s cold comfort, since even if I wanted company no one will come near me anymore.
ROBERTO BOLANO

Alone Company Honesty Myself Strong Truth
The sky, at sunset, looked like a carnivorous flower.
ROBERTO BOLANO

Flower Sky Sunset
In some lost fold of the past, we wanted to be lions and we’re no more than castrated cats
ROBERTO BOLANO

Ability Goal Lost Potential Tiger
Death, in the Eastern tradition, was only a passage. What wasn’t clear, was toward what place, what reality, that passage led.
ROBERTO BOLANO

Death Passage Reality Tradition
You run risks. That’s the plain truth. You run risks and, even in the most unlikely places, you are subject to destiny’s whims.
ROBERTO BOLANO

Plain Risk Run Subject Truth
Metaphors are our way of losing ourselves in semblances or treading water in a sea of seeming.
ROBERTO BOLANO

Assume Lose Sea Water
I’m an educated man, the prisons I know are subtle ones.
ROBERTO BOLANO

Education Man Oneself Prison Subtle
Reading is like thinking, like praying, like talking to a friend, like expressing your ideas, like listening to other people’s ideas, like listening to music, like looking at the view, like taking a walk on the beach.
ROBERTO BOLANO

Friendship People Prayer Reading Thinking View Walk
If you’re going to say what you want to say, you’re going to hear what you don’t want to hear.
ROBERTO BOLANO

Arrogance Disrespect Ego Yourself
Then he went out without touching anything and put his arm around Ingeborg, and like that, with their arms around each other, they returned to the village while the whole past of the universe fell on their heads.
ROBERTO BOLANO

Each Other Head Past Touch Universe
The American mirror, said the voice, the sad American mirror of wealth and poverty and constant useless metamorphosis, the mirror that sails and whose sails are pain.
ROBERTO BOLANO

Constant Mirror Pain Poverty Voice Wealth
You have to know how to look even if you don’t know what you’re looking for.
ROBERTO BOLANO

Known Yourself
The moon is fat and the night air is so pure it seems edible.
ROBERTO BOLANO

Edible Fat Moon Night Purity
Jesus is the masterpiece. The thieves are minor works. Why are they there? Not to frame the crucifixion, as some innocent souls believe, but to hide it.
ROBERTO BOLANO

Believe Frame Innocent Masterpiece Soul Work
I’ll tell you, my friends: it’s all in the nerves. The nerves that tense and relax as you approach the edges of companionship and love. The razor-sharp edges of companionship and love.
ROBERTO BOLANO

Approach Edge Friendship Love Nerve
For a moment the two of them looked at each other, wordless, as if they were asleep and their dreams had converged on common ground, a place where sound was alien.
ROBERTO BOLANO

Alien Each Other Moments Place Sound
Literature is the product of a strange rain of blood, sweat, semen, and tears.
ROBERTO BOLANO

Blood Literature Product Strange
The secret story is the one we’ll never know, although we’re living it from day to day, thinking we’re alive, thinking we’ve got it all under control and the stuff we overlook doesn’t matter.
ROBERTO BOLANO

Known Live Oneself Secret Story Thinking
We never stop reading, although every book comes to an end, just as we never stop living, although death is certain.
ROBERTO BOLANO

Book Death Philosophy Reading Stop
Every book in the world is out there waiting to be read by me.
ROBERTO BOLANO

Book Myself Reading Wait World
Poetry and prison have always been neighbors.
ROBERTO BOLANO

Neighbor Poetry Prison
Reading is more important than writing.
ROBERTO BOLANO

Important Reading Writing

When people read his books they have an uncontrollable desire to hang the author in the town square. I can’t think of a higher honor for a writer.

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When people read his books they have an uncontrollable desire to hang the author in the town square. I can’t think of a higher honor for a writer.

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Popular Authors

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