In the Night of Time
Antonio Muñoz Molina
Top 10 Best Quotes
“Only with her had he discovered and now regained what he'd never known could be so pleasurable, the habit of conversing, explaining himself to himself, confirming immediate affinities in what until then he'd though of as a solitary sensations and thoughts. Always his fear of inconveniency, his slowness in finding the exact words and the courage to say them, always the temptation of silence and conformity, the permanent frustration of feeling like a guest in his own house and in a life that was the only one he had and yet never belonged to him.”
“I've thought a great deal about the things I'd say to you, if I saw you again, but now I don't like having said any of it. We talk and words betray us. You think of them and when you say them out loud they mean something else.”
“He's always been about to leave. He doesn't know for how many years he's been a guest in his own life.”
“He had so little experience, or so little capacity for real introspection, he didn't imagine the guilt and anguish lying in wait; he didn't even ask himself what Judith Biely might be feeling. She didn't exist for him in an autonomous, complete way but only as a projection of his own desire”
“What had excited most about her from the start was what made him most afraid and what had eventually taken her away from him: the strength of her will.”
“The attraction of an exotic presence that was intensely carnal and at the same time as intangible as a promise was contained not in her attitude or words but in her very presence, the shape of her face, the color of her hair and eyes, the timbre of her voice, and something else not in her, the promise of so many unfulfilled and often unformed desires in him, roused by her proximity as if by a clap of hands or a voice revealing the dimension of a great area of darkness.”
“The appearance of normality was in and of itself a poor antidote to disaster.”
“She wants to shake him, to feel the danger again and be capable of rejecting it, or to spare herself the pity she feels for him, the self pity she sees in him, the humiliation of having lost her and not being desired by her.”
“She looked around and wouldn't understand how she'd reached this point, by what sum of errors, as if after a long, difficult journey she found herself in the wrong station, her suitcases on the ground, the train she'd been on disappearing in the distance and no other in sight, and nobody in the station, not even an open clerk's window where she could consult timetables or buy another ticket.”
“Only Judith's presence expanded his capacity for seeing, opened his eyes to things he wouldn't have noticed without her.”
Except where otherwise noted, all rights reserved to the author(s) of this book (mentioned above). The content of this page serves solely as promotional material for the aforementioned book. If you enjoyed these quotes, you can support the author(s) by acquiring the full book from Amazon.
Book Keywords:
desire, normality, attraction, words, will
