Quotes From "Serbian Satire And Aphorisms" By Dejan Stojanovic

Through memory to knowledge on the way to stars that are stepping down to the stuffy rooms of modern bureaucrats, illuminating their ceilings, their horizons where everything is easily resolved by the piles of paper and recipes for how to live, create, run, eat, breathe, learn how to love, how to make love, how to sleep, how to dream, how happiness is achieved under the artificial stars of the new sky that emerged from the bureaucratic rooms of aspiring and impotent minds, unable to love, even though they had all their life to learn what they preach. Dejan Stojanovic

A word was more valuable to them when they were not sure of its value. Since they became famous, their word has been more expensive but its value is less. Dejan Stojanovic

We don’t know who was tricked by whom. Did the writer deceive the word, or did the word deceive the writer? Dejan Stojanovic

A number is still very accurate, but its role is changed. In the changed role this number enriches the silence. Dejan Stojanovic

In its proper role, a number counts the missing words. Dejan Stojanovic

Unwritten words grow out of silence. Dejan Stojanovic

Many writers were better before they became famous. Dejan Stojanovic

There are literary works that speak for themselves and there are writers who boast through work. Dejan Stojanovic

Names do not write poems nor do they create work. Dejan Stojanovic

Anyone who writes can be called a writer because they write. Dejan Stojanovic

Those who would like to become writers attend courses on writing poetry and prose and analyze their own work and that of other writers in development. Teachers teach them that talent is not required and that anyone, who wants to be a writer, can do it if they only master the technique of writing and master the formulas of the genre that they choose. With a little brain storming ideas written on cards, as well as designs and plans on the table, one can even write a novel in a month. There is no secret; the whole secret is in the technique, a little research, and the rest is solved by form, according to a formula, in which it is all nicely wrapped up and packaged. And so, a bestseller is born. Dejan Stojanovic

What are all these writers fighting for? For their own victory or for the victory of their profession? Dejan Stojanovic

A poem that is itself a name does not yearn for the name of its creator, but shines from its name alone. Dejan Stojanovic

A poem does not radiate from the name, but the name emanates from the poem. Dejan Stojanovic

The name does not deserve the poem, but the poem deserves the name. Dejan Stojanovic

In a real poem a sound does not swallow a letter, but a letter swallows a sound. Dejan Stojanovic

An unrewarded value is more valuable than a reward with no value. Dejan Stojanovic

Knowing how to dream is more important than the story, because the story tells itself. Dejan Stojanovic

The length of novels, poems and stories, is measured by the number of missing words; a thousand pages become one, one becomes a thousand. Dejan Stojanovic

A well paid word deceives them. And what kind of a word is a word that has a price, high or low, which is adjusted to the price of fame, and how, long ago, when it was little appreciated, was it more valuable than it is today with a big price? Dejan Stojanovic

Everything passes through the eyes of top bureaucrats who closely watch to ensure that no intruder can enter their ranks and disrupt the order and arrangement of values in which everything is predetermined and where everyone knows their place, everyone’s potential, talent and position in history. Dejan Stojanovic

They forget that love is not a science but an inherent state of mind; they forget that sex is practiced by animals without textbooks and that it is not such a secret that requires a complete science, courses and special training. And so impotent, with artificial stars on the ceilings of their rooms, they become the main teachers on the way to the stars. Dejan Stojanovic

There are anonymous poems and poets without poems. Dejan Stojanovic

Names sound nice because no one peeks behind the cover to see the sad face of a poem crying for meaning, while the name of the creator proudly smiles from the title. Dejan Stojanovic

A poem is its own name and cover. Dejan Stojanovic

There are those who speak and those who dream. Dejan Stojanovic

They read a little bit, write a little, and especially agree with themselves on important moves, important information, important awards, important writers that they plan to enthrone forever in history through a variety of memberships and numerous prizes awarded under the influence of top bureaucrats who know everything, not only about literature, but also about secret conspiracies, the Masons that lurk in every corner to crucify someone, steal someone’s soul and sell it to an unknown devil, about whom only the chief bureaucrat possesses secret knowledge that he doesn’t share; about history, ghosts, missing continents; about who said what to whom in confidence. Dejan Stojanovic

Is my victory real, does the winner adorned with a laurel wreath ask this question? Do I deserve victory or did I steal it from someone who is more worthy of victory? Dejan Stojanovic

Bureaucracy is a huge beast; deeply rooted, it exists even among artists; it’s an almost losing battle against it. Dejan Stojanovic

Everything is much easier in the half-blind and half-deaf world of modern giants that seduce processions of the blind into the world of great emptiness. In their sky the stars shine and their names live in the parallel and independently of their work. Dejan Stojanovic

It is enough to write a few lines about tanks in the streets in some sad country, about a clear injustice, which requires no description; it is enough to move from one side to another, to satisfy someone’s taste, the need of the moment, the need for “big” games to take a peek into everything and to prove everything with cheap opinions formed almost on command, almost as a recipe of measured pain to resolve the crisis, to extinguish the pain based on a few words that don’t change anything except that they flatter vanity and a misguided interest in all dimensions of life and creation, in the air that is being poisoned by smoke from cars, smoke from the television screens, the smoke curtains of politicians, left and right, the smoke of films and pop culture, smokescreens of intelligence that finds an explanation for all this, makes up theories, finds justification for the schizophrenic decisions of the new rulers, for wars, agreements, contracts; finds justification for obedience, for the sale of beliefs under the disguise of conviction, for several awards, for a few moments of illusion in the hocus-pocus world where the truth does not interest anyone anymore, except for ways for lies to be packaged and sold as the greatest truth with the help of big intellectuals that will find a good argument, a good defense and justification for everything, since everything becomes much easier, if a hoax is supported by “scientific” evidence. Dejan Stojanovic

Almost as a rule, political dissidents were writers. Dejan Stojanovic