Danilo Kis Quotes

#1. History is written by the victors. Legends are woven by the people. Writers fantasize. Only death is certain.

"To Die for One's Country is Glorious," p. 131

Danilo Kis

#2. The reading of many books brings wisdom, and the reading of one brings ignorance armed with rage and hatred.

Danilo Kis

#3. I don't want to make a tea set. I want to make crystal, as the wonderful Billy Wiseass would put it. That poor bastard has it good: he's never experienced love. It'll be easy for him to write a romance novel.

Danilo Kis

#4. It is hard to lift up your own misfortune. To be at once the viewer and the viewed. To be both above and below. The one below is a spot, a shadow ... To consider your own person in the light of eternity (read: in the light of death). To rise into the air. The world from a bird's-eye view.

Danilo Kis

#5. I start writing when I overcome my disgust with literature.

Danilo Kis

#6. During that year by the railroad embankment, at the time of my father's complete disaster, distance meant for us not only some faraway lyrical splendor but also the exceedingly utilitarian idea of running away, the deliverance from fear and hunger.

Danilo Kis

#7. The past was a minefield about which few maps seemed to agree. And why should that surprise me? It's a big place.
p. 30

Danilo Kis

#8. Even a stone would talk if you broke its teeth.

Danilo Kis

#9. I dislike people who get out of things unscraped. No scars, no scratches. Agnosceo veteris vestigia flamme. Refined through a scar.

Danilo Kis

#10. I wish to live in peace with myself and not with the world.

Danilo Kis

#11. You can't play the role of a victim all your life without becoming one in the end.

Danilo Kis