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41 " No odmah je dodao tišim glasom, već se pribravši, da je najveća razlika između diktature i demokracije u tome što u diktaturi postoji samo jedna isitina, ona koju nameće vlast, dok u demokratskim zemljama svaki pojedinac ima pravo braniti svoju verziju događaja. Istina je, reče, samo praznovjerje. Ta se ideja posebno dojmila Felixa. "
― José Eduardo Agualusa , The Book of Chameleons
42 " foreigner ate with a glowing appetite, as though he weren’t tasting the firm flesh of the snapper but its whole life, the years and years slipping between the sudden explosions of a shoal, the whirling of the waters, the thick strands of light that on sunny evenings fall straight down into the blue abyss. "
43 " if you were this fish, would you prefer me to be eating you with sadness or with delight? "
44 " I lived for almost a century in the skin of a man, and I never managed to feel altogether human either. "
45 " A name can be a curse. Some are dragged along by their name, like muddy river waters after a heavy shower, however much they may resist they’re propelled toward their destination…Others, on the contrary – their names are like masks that hide them, that deceive. Most have no power at all, of course. "
46 " A guava tree in bloom, for instance, lost in the pages of a good novel, can bring delight with its fictional perfume to any number of real rooms. "
47 " أحلامي تقريبًا دائمًا معقولة أكثر من الواقع "
48 " Sometimes they don't write what I mean, they just write what I say. "
49 " Lies are everywhere. Even nature herself lies. What is camouflage, for instance, but a lie? The chameleon disguises itself as a leaf in order to deceive a poor butterfly. He lies to it saying, Don't worry, my dear, can't you see I'm just a very green leaf waving in the breeze, and then he jets out his tongue at six hundred and twenty-five centimeters a second, and eats it. "
50 " He was an unpleasant sort of character, professionally indignant, who'd built up his whole career abroad, selling our national horrors to European readers. Misery does ever so well in wealthy countries. "
51 " داخل هذا المنزل أنا مثل إله ليلي صغير، خلال النهار، أنام "
52 " If he'd been able to he would have rolled out a rose-petal carpet at her feet. He would have liked to conduct an orchestra of birds to sing as rainbows appeared in the sky, one by one. "
53 " In olden days stories for children always used to end with the words, and they lived happily ever after, this being after the Prince has married the Princess and they’ve had lots of children. In life there’s never a plot that works out like that, of course. Princesses marry bodyguards, they marry trapeze-artists and life goes on, and they live unhappily until they separate. And years later, just like the rest of us, they die. We’re only happy – truly happy – when it’s for ever-after, but only children live in a world where things can last forever. "
54 " «La felicidad es casi siempre una irresponsabilidad. Somos felices durante los breves instantes en que cerramos los ojos.» "
55 " Hope, he joked. Always the last to die. "
56 " Ao chegar-mos a velhos apenas nos resta a certeza de que em breve seremos ainda mais velhos. Dizer a alguém que é jovem não me parece uma expressão correcta. "
57 " I have a lot of sympathy for impossible passions. I am -- or rather, I was -- a specialist in them. "
