Too Many Books..

"Can't a man do anything without a reason? Just like that, because he wants to?"

"This is true happiness: to have no ambition. To live and to work like a horse as if you had every ambition. To live far from men, not to need them and yet to love them. To take part in the Christmas festivities and, after eating and drinking well, to escape on your own far from all the snares, to have the stars above, the land to your left and the sea to your right: and to realize of a sudden that, in your heart, life has accomplished its final miracle: it has become a fairy tale."

"Woman is a fresh spring. You lean over her, you see your reflection and you drink; you drink until your bones crack. Then there's another who comes, and he's thirsty, too; he bends over her, he sees his reflection and he drinks. Then a third... A fresh spring, that's what she is, and she's a woman too..."

"Man's heart is a ditch full of blood. The loved ones who have died throw themselves down on the bank of this ditch to drink the blood and so come to life again; the dearer they are to you, the more of your blood they drink."

"We should not hurry, we should not be impatient, but we should confidently obey the eternal rhythm."

"Art is, in fact, a magic incantation. Obscure homicidal forces lurk in our entrails, deadly impulses to kill, destroy, hate, dishonor. Then art appears with its sweet piping and delivers us."

"Every man has his folly, but the greatest folly of all, in my view, is not to have one."

"All the little virtues which are so useful are lacking in him. All he has is an uncomfortable, dangerous virtue which is hard to satisfy and which urges him continually and irresistibly towards the utmost limits, towards the abyss."

"As a child, then, I had almost fallen into the well. When grown up, I nearly fell into the word "eternity," and into quite a number of other words too - "love," "hope," "country," "God." As each word was conquered and left behind, I had the feeling that I had escaped a danger and made some progress. But no, I was only changing words and calling it deliverance."

"How do you expect to get the better of a devil if you don't turn into a devil-and-a-half yourself?"

"I feel I shan't even go on asking that! Whether a man's good or bad, I'm sorry for him, for all of 'em. The sight of a man just rends my insides, even if I act as though I don't care a damn! There he is, poor devil, I think; he also eats and drinks and makes love and is frightened, whoever he is: he has his God and his devil just the same, and he'll peg out and lie as stiff as a board beneath the ground and be food for worms, just the same. Poor devil! We're all brothers! All worm meat!"

"Would God sit over the earthworms and keep count of everything they do? And get angry and storm and fret himself silly because one went astray with the female earthworm next door or swallowed a mouthful of meat on Good Friday? Bah! Get away with you, all you soup-swilling priests! Bah!"

"Reason, the eternal grocer, laughs at the soul, as we ourselves laugh at witches and old women who cast spells."

"I come and go on earth, visit those who were dear to me, but their hearts are closed. Where can I enter? How can I bring myself to life? I turn in a circle like a dog going round and round a house where all the doors are locked and barred. Ah! if only I could live free, and not have to cling like a drowning man to your warm and living bodies!"

'ZORBA THE GREEK' ~Nikos Kazanatzakis