Ilustrado Quotes

“The instant before something comes into focus is more exciting than any sharp certainty. Photography, child, is about the passing of time. Capturing is the goal of literature. Timelessness is the task of music and painting. But a good photograph holds time just as a vase holds water. The water will evaporate and the vase becomes a memorial to it. What separates a snapshot from a masterpiece is that the latter is a metaphor of patience...”

“The instant before something comes into focus is more exciting than any sharp certainty. Photography, child, is about the passing of time. Capturing is the goal of literature. Timelessness is the task of music and painting. But a good photograph holds time just as a vase holds water. The water will evaporate and the vase becomes a memorial to it. What separates a snapshot from a masterpiece is that the latter is a metaphor of patience...”

“Perhaps we have stopped ourselves from being invented, from self-realization, by blaming others for our wordlessness.”

“Angst is not the human condition, it’s the purgatory between what we have and what we want but can’t get.”

“Literature is an ethical leap. It is a moral decision. A perilous exercise in constant failure. Literature should have grievances, because there are so many grievances in the world.”

“I transform fiction into memory.”

“Oh, sweetheart. What can anyone do? That's just the way things are. You really think you can change the world?”

“History is changed by martyrs who tell the truth.”

“Love and honesty don’t mix.”

“To be an honest writer, you have to be away from home, and totally alone in life.”

“Oh, how wonderfully romantic of you. Romantics are really only in love with themselves.”