Marianne

“For her, reading was directly linked to pleasure, not to knowledge or enigmas or constructions or verbal labyrinths…”
― Roberto Bolaño, 2666

“When Espinoza got back to the hotel he found Pelletier reading Archimboldi. Seen from the distance, Pelletier's face, and in fact not just his face but his whole body, radiated an enviable calm. When he got a little closer, he realised the book wasn't Saint Thomas but rather The Blind Woman, and he asked Pelletier whether he'd had the patience to reread the other book from start to finish. Pelletier looked up at him and didn't answer. He said instead that it was surprising, or that it would never cease to surprise him, the way Archimboldi depicted pain and shame. "Delicately," said Espinoza. "That's right," said Pelletier. "Delicately." p.143”
― Bolano, Roberto

“He chose The Metamorphosis over The Trial, he chose Bartleby over Moby-Dick, he chose A Simple Heart over Bouvard and Pecuchet, and A Christmas Carol over A Tale of Two Cities or The Pickwick Papers. What a sad paradox, thought Amalfitano. Now even bookish pharmacists are afraid to take on the great, imperfect, torrential works, books that blaze paths into the unknown. They choose the perfect exercises of the great masters. Or what amounts to the same thing: they want to watch the great masters spar, but they have no interest in real combat, when the great masters struggle against that something, that something that terrifies us all, that something that cows us and spurs us on, amid blood and mortal wounds and stench.”
― Roberto Bolaño, 2666

“No, it is not the goal but the way there that matters, and the harder the way the more worth while the journey.”
― Wilfred Thesiger