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Etgar Keret QUOTES

Etgar Keret QUOTES

1 " It's amazing how people can sound like retards when they're talking to their girlfriend, especially if they really love her a lot. Because when you're just fucking someone you make a point of keeping your cool, but when you're really in love - it can sound pretty repulsive. "

― Etgar Keret , The Nimrod Flipout

2 " Flights are expansive moments when the phone doesn't ring and the Internet doesn't work. The maxim that flying time is wasted time liberates me from my anxieties and guilt feelings, and it strips me of all ambitions, leaving room for a different sort of existence. A happy, idiotic existence, the kind that doesn't try to make the most of time but is satisfied with merely finding the most enjoyable way to spend it. "

― Etgar Keret , The Seven Good Years

3 " He felt full of a dense and sour substance that was blocking his chest, and it wasn't grief. After all those years, life now seemed like no more than a trap, a maze, not even a maze, just a room that was all walls, no door. "

― Etgar Keret , Gaza Blues: Different Stories

4 " Experience has taught me that there are some situations in which it's better to keep quiet. That is, I tried to keep quiet. Life gives me good advice, but sometimes I refuse to take it. "

― Etgar Keret , The Seven Good Years

5 " Me, when it comes to religion, I have no God. When I'm cool, I don't need anyone, and when I'm feeling shitty and this big empty hole opens up inside me, I just know there's never been a god that could fill it and there never will be. "

― Etgar Keret , The Seven Good Years

6 " Dad said I had no respect for money and that if I didn't learn when I was little when was I going to learn? Kids who get Bart Simpson dolls at the drop of a hat turn into punks who steal from convenience stores, ‘cos they wind up thinking they can have whatever they want, just like that. So instead of a Bart doll he bought me an ugly porcelain pig with a slot in its back, and now I'll grow up to be okay, now I won't turn into a punk. "

― Etgar Keret , Missing Kissinger

7 " To what extent does anybody control his destiny? Life is very much like falling of the edge of a cliff. You have complete freedom to make all the choices you want to take on your way down. My characters choose to yearn and not lose hope even when the odds are completely against them. It doesn't make the landing at the end of that fall any less painful but, somehow, it helps them keep a little dignity their bone broken body. "

― Etgar Keret

8 " I usually start writing stories from tone and not from content—kind of like people who create music and invent the lyrics later on. I often give this metaphor where I say that writing short fiction is like surfing, while writing a novel is like navigating with your car. So when you navigate with your car, you want to get somewhere. When you surf, you don’t want to get somewhere, you just don’t want to fall off your board. I think the equivalent of balance is tone, so I think tone gives birth to the story. "

― Etgar Keret

9 " You know how it feels when you're someplace and you ask yourself, Why am I here? That's how it is with me all the time. I can't wait to leave. To go from wherever I am to some other place. It never ends. "

― Etgar Keret , The Girl on the Fridge

10 " A word is a lot. "

― Etgar Keret

11 " There are two kinds of people, those who like to sleep next to the wall, and those who like to sleep next to the people who push them off the bed. "

― Etgar Keret , The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God and Other Stories

12 " To live is to suffer, to live is to sweat, to live is an ache you can't fucking forget.

To live is to yearn, to live is to burn, to live is to fucking screw up and wait for the fate to turn. "

― Etgar Keret

13 " He invented ordinary things, and I stress, ordinary. Not brilliant, just ordinary, and that's exactly what humanity needs. Brilliant inventions might be good for brilliant people, but how many brilliant people are there? On the other hand, ordinary inventions are good for everyone. "

― Etgar Keret , The Nimrod Flipout

14 " I mean, there aren't many inventions that actually succeed in meeting some human need. Ninety-nine percent of them are just some ugly combo of pushy marketing and spineless consumers. "

― Etgar Keret , The Nimrod Flipout

15 " They shot him like a dog, and me they slapped. That's how it always is--they shoot the men like dogs, and the women get slapped. "I don't have the heart to kill you even though you deserve it," their leader, who, oddly enough, was the shortest one. "We won't even rape you," he added, and from the look in his eyes, I could tell that he considered himself a prince, but instead of thanking him for his courtesy, I started to cry. It's tough being a woman, what with all those slaps and all the men you lose. When you're a man, they take you out of bed in the middle of the night once, drag you into the street, and bam, it's over. But when you're a woman, it never ends. "

― Etgar Keret , The Girl on the Fridge

16 " Винаги съм вярвал, че Раят е място за хора, които цял живот са правили добро, само че не е така. Бог е прекалено милостив и щедър, за да вземе подобно решение. Раят просто е място за хора, които на земята са били истински неспособни на щастие. Тук ми казаха, че самоубийците получават възможност да изживеят живота си отново, защото не е речено, че ако не им е допаднал първия път, втория няма да им пасне. Но онези, които изобщо не си намират място на света, се озовават тук. И всеки от тях влиза в Рая по свой си начин. "

― Etgar Keret , The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God and Other Stories

17 " When I ask him if he thinks there's a moral to his story, he says he's sure there must be, but doesn't know exactly what it is. "Maybe," he says after a short pause, "it's that this world is full of lizards, and even though there's nothing we can do about it, it is always helpful to find out how big they are. "

― Etgar Keret , The Seven Good Years

18 " So if you're really unhappy down there, and if all kinds of people are telling you that you're suffering from severe perceptual disorders, look for your own way of getting here, and when you find it, could you please bring some cards, 'cause we're getting pretty tired of the marbles. - from "Pipes "

― Etgar Keret , The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God and Other Stories

19 " She had this vague look in her eyes, half-disappointed, half what's-the-difference. Like someone who realized he bought skim milk by mistake and doesn't have the energy to take it back. "

― Etgar Keret , The Girl on the Fridge

20 " When you're having an asthma attack, you don't have any breath. When you don't have any breath, it's hard to speak. You're limited by the amount of air you can spend from your lungs. That's not much, something between three to six words. It gives the word a meaning. You're searching through the piles of words in your head, picking the most important ones. And they have a cost. It's not like the healthy people that take out every word that has accumulated in their head like garbage. When someone, while having an asthma attack, says "I love you" or "I really love you", there's a difference. A word difference. And a word is a lot, because that word could have been "sit", "Ventolin" or even "ambulance". "

― Etgar Keret , Rury