Цитаты из книги The Magus

Глупость- дорога к смерти, говорил весь его вид; а я, смотрите-ка, выжил.
Не в том, что одиночка осмелился  стать проводником зла. А в том, что миллионы окружающих  не осмелились принять сторону добра.

Чем глубже вы осознаете свободу, тем меньше ею обладаете.

Смерть, как и жизнь, не стоит принимать близко к сердцу.

Ибо свободен лишь тот, кто умеет улыбаться. И раз улыбка исчезает,- в мировоздании все предопределено.

такое лето, понимал я, выпадает человеку раз в жизни.

"за цинизмом всегда скрывается неспособность к усилию" "быть выше борьбы может лишь тот, кто по-настоящему боролся." "Чувство долга, как правило, немыслимо без того, чтобы принимать скучные вещи с энтузиазмом." "Ведь принимая себя такими, каковы мы есть, мы лишаемся надежды стать теми, какими должны быть."

I saw her smile. ‘There must be something we don’t agree on.’

‘In some other life. Not this.’

Perhaps one day, Nicholas, you will have an experience that means a great deal to you.’ I could hear no irony in his voice, but it was implicit. ‘You will then realize what I mean when I say that some experiences so possess you that the one thing you cannot tolerate is the thought of their not being in some way for ever present.

There are three types of intelligent person: the first so intelligent that being called very intelligent must seem natural and obvious; the second sufficiently intelligent to see that he is being flattered, not described; the third so little intelligent that he will believe anything.

I don’t think you were a traitor to the human race.’

We moved towards his bedroom windows.

‘The human race is unimportant. It is the self that must not be betrayed.’

‘I suppose one could say that Hitler didn’t betray his self.’

He turned.

‘You are right. He did not. But millions of Germans did betray their selves. That was the tragedy. Not that one man had the courage to be evil. But that millions had not the courage to be good.’

I had always seen myself as potentially a sort of protector of her; and for the first time, that evening at Bourani, I saw that perhaps she had been, or could have been, a protector of me.

I stared at the one on the left, not the one he had inventoried. It showed a girl by a sunlit window with her back turned, apparently drying her loins and watching herself in the mirror at the same time. I was remembering Alison, Alison wandering about the flat naked, singing, like a child. It was an unforgettable painting; it set a dense golden halo of light round the most trivial of moments, so that the moment, and all such moments, could never be completely trivial again.

‘I do not judge countries by their geniuses. I judge them by their racial characteristics. The ancient Greeks could laugh at themselves. The Romans could not. That is why France is a civilized society and Spain is not. That is why I forgive the Jews and the Anglo-Saxons their countless vices. And why I should thank God, if I believed in God, that I have no German blood.’

I felt no consolation in this knowledge, but only a red anger that evolution could allow such sensitivity and such inadequacy to coexist in the same mind.

It’s just he’s so uncomplicated, he stops me thinking, he stops me being lonely

I can’t go on any more. I’m so sorry if this hurts you. Please believe that I’m sorry, please don’t be angry with me for knowing you will be hurt. I can hear you saying, I’m not hurt.

I suddenly had a feeling that we were one body, one person, even there; that if she had disappeared it would have been as if I had lost half of myself. A terrible deathlike feeling, which anyone less cerebral and self-absorbed than I was then would have realized was simply love. I thought it was desire. I drove her straight home and tore her clothes off.

Но кто знает — а вдруг за этой трусливо-подловатой жаждой походить на других, эгоистичным желанием, чтобы кто-то стирал тебе носки, пришивал пуговицы, удовлетворял твою похоть, восторгался тобой, готовил обед из трех блюд, и есть что-то стоящее, некое стремление к порядку, к гармонии?

Солнце тут светило в упор, манеры были изящнее, архитектура и живопись - разнообразнее, но итальянцы, подобно их предкам, римлянам, словно бы прятались от света, правды, от собственной души за тяжелой ширмой роскоши, за маской изнеженности