1
On the brink of sleep I have a gloomy thought: that saving yourself is only pushing yourself even deeper into the trap rather than getting out. Dying is the only way out.Erri De Luca
2
Do you really know yourself so well or are you making it up?' she asks. Some things I concoct, some I glean from my senses, most I thirst for.Erri De Luca
3
I can hardly keep track of the things I don't know, but every now and then comes an ignorance that makes me nostalgic.Erri De Luca
4
I grow fond of David, who lays a single stone before Goliath and a single book, the Psalms, in the mouth of the world.Erri De Luca
5
Sometimes to take two steps in a row, one after the other, I need to make a contract with myself.Erri De Luca
6
A man dies and his skin loses heat like the sand on a summer evening. It makes you feel like warming him up.Erri De Luca
7
You stay in the war because it would be shameful to stay out of it. An then grief seizes you and hold its grip till anger has turned you into a soldier.Erri De Luca
8
This is what books should do: Carry a person and not be carried by him; take the day off his back, not add its own ounces of paper to his vertebrae.Erri De Luca
9
I see the pain of miserly love in young people, ' I say. 'You don't have that kind of melancholy on your face. But I'm careful not to step on your feet when I speak with you. It's not like dancing. It's like a stone walkway with a little grass between the cracks. It's strong but I will try to tread carefully and not ruin it. In Muslim homes you leave your shoes outside. This is how I behave with you.Erri De Luca