Clarice Lispector Quotes

Quotes about:

• It is because I dove into the abyss that I am beginning to love the abyss I am made of.

  Clarice Lispector

  Dove, Made, Abyss

  Clarice Lispector (1988). “The Passion According to G.H.”, p.139, U of Minnesota Press

  58 Copy quote

• Do you know that hope sometimes consists only of a question without an answer?

  Clarice Lispector

  Answers, Sometimes, Knows

  55 Copy quote

• Living isn't courage, knowing that you're living, that's courage

  Clarice Lispector

  Knowing

  Clarice Lispector (1988). “The Passion According to G.H.”, p.16, U of Minnesota Press

  15 Copy quote

• Do you ever suddenly find it strange to be yourself?

  Clarice Lispector

  Being Yourself, Strange

  Clarice Lispector, Johnny Lorenz, Benjamin Moser (2012). “A Breath of Life”, p.59, New Directions Publishing

  57 Copy quote

• Her curiosity instructed her more than the answers she was given.

  Clarice Lispector

  Curiosity, Answers, Given

  Clarice Lispector (1984). “Family Ties”, p.105, University of Texas Press

  52 Copy quote

• Who has not asked himself at some time or other: am I a monster or is this what it means to be a person?

  Clarice Lispector

  Mean, Monsters, Persons

  Clarice Lispector (1986). “The Hour of the Star”, p.15, New Directions Publishing

  46 Copy quote

• To think is an act. To feel is a fact.

  Clarice Lispector

  Thinking, Facts, Feels

  Clarice Lispector (1986). “The Hour of the Star”, p.11, New Directions Publishing

  21 Copy quote

• Everything in the world began with a yes. One molecule said yes to another molecule and life was born.

  Clarice Lispector

  Life, Saying Yes, Novelists

  Clarice Lispector (1986). “The Hour of the Star”, p.11, New Directions Publishing

  89 Copy quote

• Putting my hand in someone else’s has always been my definition of happiness. Before I fall asleep, often - in that small struggle not to lose consciousness and go into the greater world - often, before I get up the courage to go into the vastness of sleep, I pretend that someone has my hand in theirs, and then I go, go to that enormous absence of form that is sleep. And when even after that I don’t have courage, I dream.

  Clarice Lispector

  Dream, Struggle, Fall

  58 Copy quote

• I only achieve simplicity with enormous effort

  Clarice Lispector

  Simplicity, Effort, Achieve

  Clarice Lispector (1986). “The Hour of the Star”, p.11, New Directions Publishing

  57 Copy quote

• I do not know much. But there are certain advantages in not knowing. Like virgin territory, the mind is free of preconceptions. Everything I do not know forms the greater part of me: This is my largesse. And with this I understand everything. The things I do not know constitute my truth.

  Clarice Lispector

  Knowing, Mind, Territory

  54 Copy quote

• The only truth is that I live. Sincerely, I live. Who am I? Well, that's a bit much.

  Clarice Lispector

  Truth Is, Wells, Sincerely

  Clarice Lispector (2012). “Near to the Wild Heart”, p.26, New Directions Publishing

  57 Copy quote

• I write to save someone's life, probably my own

  Clarice Lispector

  Writing, My Own

  11 Copy quote

• The mystery of human destiny is that we are fated, but that we have the freedom to fulfill or not fulfill our fate: realization of our fated destiny depends on us. While inhuman beings like the cockroach realize the entire cycle without going astray because they make no choices.

  Clarice Lispector

  Fate, Destiny, Choices

  49 Copy quote

• My life, the most truthful one, is unrecognizable, extremely interior, and there is no single word that gives it meaning.

  Clarice Lispector

  Giving, Truthful, Single Word

  "The Hour of the Star". Book by Clarice Lispector, 1977.

  35 Copy quote

• There it is, the sea, the most incomprehensible of non-human existences.

  Clarice Lispector

  Sea, Existence, Humans

  Clarice Lispector (1989). “Soulstorm: Stories”, p.162, New Directions Publishing

  53 Copy quote

• Whether she won or lost, she would continue to wrestle with life. It would not be with her own life alone but with all of life. Something had finally been released within her. And there it was, the sea.

  Clarice Lispector

  Sea, Lost

  Clarice Lispector (1986). “An Apprenticeship, Or, The Book of Delights”, Austin : University of Texas Press

  50 Copy quote

• You don't understand music: you hear it. So hear me with your whole body.

  Clarice Lispector

  Body, Whole

  Clarice Lispector (2017). “Agua Viva”, p.15, Penguin UK

  37 Copy quote

• Things were somehow so good that they were in danger of becoming very bad because what is fully mature is very close to rotting

  Clarice Lispector

  Rotting, Becoming, Mature

  Clarice Lispector (1986). “The Hour of the Star”, p.17, New Directions Publishing

  41 Copy quote

• The world's continual breathing is what we hear and call silence.

  Clarice Lispector

  Breathing, Silence, World

  17 Copy quote

• All the world began with a yes. One molecule said yes to another molecule and life was born. But before prehistory there was the prehistory of the prehistory and there was the never and there was the yes. It was ever so. I don’t know why, but I do know that the universe never began.
  Make no mistake, I only achieve simplicity with enormous effort.

  Clarice Lispector

  Mistake, Simplicity, Effort

  19 Copy quote

• I work only with lost and founds.

  Clarice Lispector

  Lost, Found, Lost And Found

  Clarice Lispector (1989). “Agua Viva”, p.59, U of Minnesota Press

  21 Copy quote

• No it is not easy to write. It is as hard as breaking rocks. Sparks and splinters fly like shattered steel.

  Clarice Lispector

  Writing, Rocks, Steel

  Clarice Lispector (1986). “The Hour of the Star”, p.19, New Directions Publishing

  39 Copy quote

• At first she dreamed of sheep, of going to school, of cats drinking milk. Little by little she dreamed of blue sheep, of going to school in the middle of the woods, of cats drinking milk from golden saucers. And her dreams became increasingly dense and acquired colours that were difficult to dilute into words.

  Clarice Lispector

  Dream, Drinking, School

  "Near to the Wild Heart" by Clarice Lispector, (p. 43), 1943.

  11 Copy quote

• And now -- now it only remains for me to light a cigarette and go home. Dear God, only now am I remembering that people die. Does that include me? Don't forget, in the meantime, that this is the season for strawberries. Yes.

  Clarice Lispector

  Home, Light, People

  16 Copy quote

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