Shalamov's Quotes

#1. Solzhenitsyn writes: 'Shalamov's experience in the camps was longer and more bitter than my own, and I respectfully confess that to him and not me was it given to touch those depths of bestiality and despair toward which life in the camps dragged us all.

Anonymous

#2. Coming from New York, I know that if you go by a delicatessen, and you put a sweet cucumber in the vinegar barrel, the cucumber might say, "No, I want to retain my sweetness." But it's hopeless. The barrel will turn the sweet cucumber into a pickle. You can't be a sweet cucumber in a vinegar barrel.

Philip Zimbardo

#3. Of all the fair resort of gentlemen
That every day with parle encounter me,
In thy opinion which is worthiest love?

William Shakespeare

#4. We realized that life, even the worst of life, consists of an alternation of joys and sorrow, successes and failure more than the successes.

Varlam Shalamov

#5. Seems like every time life starts straightening itself out, something's gotta go and happen.

Jacqueline Woodson

#6. It took us three years to build the NeXT computer. If we'd given customers what they said they wanted, we'd have built a computer they'd have been happy with a year after we spoke to them - not something they'd want now.

Steve Jobs

#7. A human being survives by his ability to forget. Memory is always ready to blot out the bad and retain only the good.

Varlam Shalamov

#8. I try to keep myself as sane and as grounded as possible by surrounding myself with normal people, such as all the friends that I've had from when I was little.

Emmy Rossum

#9. Elton John's home is laden with trinkets and books relating to Satanism and witchcraft.

Bernie Taupin

#10. Where I come from it was really unheard of to be at a party and someone says, 'What kind of music do you make?', and you say, 'Pop music.' You may as well have 'I'm not cool' stamped on your forehead.

Lady Gaga

#11. Tragedy is not deep and sharp if it can be shared with friend.

Varlam Shalamov

#12. There is a much that a man should not see, should not know, and if he should see it, it is better for him to die.

Varlam Shalamov

#13. I am a plain practical man, not one of your theorists and splitters of hairs and choppers of logic.

James G. Frazer

#14. Do little things as if they were great, because of the majesty of the Lord Jesus Christ who dwells in thee.

Blaise Pascal

#15. When Life comes to feed, make sure you are not the main course. - Metaphysical Minute

Dannye Williamsen

#16. If bones could freeze, then the brain could also be dulled and the soul could freeze over. And the soul shuddered and froze- perhaps to remain frozen forever.

Varlam Shalamov

#17. Life repeats Shakespearian themes more often than we think. Did Lady Macbeth, Richard III, and King Claudius exist only in the Middle Ages? Shylock wanted to cut a pound of flesh from the body of the merchant of Venice. Is that a fairy tale?

Varlam Shalamov