“Competition does not drive me. I do things better for pleasure and without trying. I mistakenly studied difficult subjects that were no use to me when I might have studied the arts for pleasure, which would have smoothed my path. I wasted time trying to be good at math. I taught myself the things that mattered to me most: to write and to take pictures.” WritingArtistPleasureEducationLearningAmbitionPhotographyCompetitionCreative ProcessSelf Taught Book:Autoportrait Source: Autoportrait
“I would rather be bored alone than with someone else. I'm drawn to strange people. At a museum I look at people with the eyes of an artist, in the streets with my own. I can't remember the name of a person I have just met. In India, I travelled in a train compartment with a Swiss man I didn't know, we were crossing the plains of Kerala, I told him more about myself in several hours than I had told my best friends in several years, I knew I would never see him again, he was an ear without repercussions. Maybe I'm writing this book so I won't have to talk to anymore.” PeopleIntrovertIntroversionSocialising Book:Autoportrait Source: Autoportrait
“I have smoked so much I felt sick. I will not lose my eyesight, I will not lose my hearing, I will not wet myself, I will not forget who I am, I will die first.” PrideDignitySuicideOld AgeSmokingAgeingEuthanasiaIncontinence Book:Autoportrait Source: Autoportrait
“I have never made much money, but this hasn't bothered me. I don't care what I'm paid. I have never had a shared bank account. I do not keep track of how much money is in my bank account. I am not stingy, I admire money well spent. I am not saving for my retirement. I have lived for several years without insurance.” MoneyPayFinanceBankingSalaryInsuranceExpenditurePersonal FinancesBank AccountPersonal Banking Book:Autoportrait Source: Autoportrait
“I have trouble remembering any truly happy moments. Listening to cheerful music is like spending time with people not like me. Bad news makes me unhappy but satisfies my paranoia.” HappinessMusicMemoryParanoia Author:Édouard Levé
“I spend a lot of time reading, but I do not consider myself a big reader. On my shelves I count as many books read as unfinished.” ReadingReading BooksReading HabitsReaders And Reading Book:Autoportrait Source: Autoportrait
“Your taste for literature did not come from your father, who read little, but from your mother, who taught it. You wondered how, being so different, they could have formed a union; but you noted that in you there was a mixture of the violence of the one and the gentleness of the other. Your father exerted his violence on others. Your mother was sympathetic to the suffering of others. One day you directed the violence you had inherited toward yourself. You dished it out like your father and you took it like your mother.” DepressionSuicideParents Book:Suicide Source: Suicide
“When I was a child, I looked at rugs the same way, as a grown-up, I look at an abstract painting.” ArtChildhoodAbstract ArtCarpetsRugs Book:Autoportrait Source: Autoportrait
“I am not an expert in anything. I form very few hard and fast judgements about politics, the economy, and international affairs. International news, even dramatic news, leaves me pretty much indifferent, I feel guilty about that.” NewsGuiltCurrent AffairsGeneral Knowledge Book:Autoportrait Source: Autoportrait
“El equilibrio me tienta la caída me revela La recuperación me cuesta El tiempo me falta el espacio me basta el vacío me atrae El error me enseña el hábito me mejora La perfección me obsesiona Construir me obsesiona conservar me sosiega Destruir me alivia La felicidad me precede la tristeza me sigue La muerte me espera” PoesíaDormirFragmentos Book:Suicide Source: Suicide
“Te controlabas menos, los medicamentos se habían adueñado de tu estado de ánimo. ¿Valía la pena perder tu libre albedrío por un poco de felicidad ficticia?” DramaDormir Book:Suicide Source: Suicide
“Pensabas que al ir envejeciendo serías menos desdichado, porque para entonces tendrías razones para estar triste. Siendo joven todavía, tu angustia era inconsolable porque la juzgabas infundada. Tu suicidio fue una belleza escandalosa.” DramaDormir Book:Suicide Source: Suicide
“Tu suicidio fue el pronunciamiento más importante de tu vida, pero no recogerás sus frutos. ¿Estás muerto si te hablo?” DramaDormir Book:Suicide Source: Suicide
“I write in bed. I prefer going to bed to getting up, but I prefer living to dying.” LifeWritingDeathSleepDyingBedLiving Book:Autoportrait Source: Autoportrait
“Tvůj otec na ostatní uplatňoval násilí. Tvá matka soucítila s utrpením druhých. Jednoho dne jsi násilí, které jsi zdědil, obrátil proti sobě samému. ZPŮSOBIL jsi je jako tvůj otec a PŘIJAL jako tvá matka.” Tag Book:Suicide Source: Suicide
“I do not fight. I have never punched anyone. I have stolen books once and once some paperclips, without really knowing why. I almost killed three passengers in my car by looking for a cassette in the glove compartment while I was going one-eighty on the highway. I wanted to write a book entitled 'In the car', made up of remarks recorded while driving. I have never filed a complaint with the police.” LawFightingCrimePoliceDrivingCriminalLaw AbidingKleptomaniacsKleptomania Book:Autoportrait Source: Autoportrait
“...dünyaya uyum sağlayamadığını hissetmek seni şaşırtmıyordu da dünyanın, içinde yabancı gibi yaşayan birini yaratmış olmasına şaşıyordun. bitkiler intihar eder mi? hayvanlar umutsuzluktan ölür mü? onlar ya işler, ya yok olurlar. sen belki de evrimin en zayıf halkası, kaza sonucu ortaya çıkmış bir iziydin. bir daha canlanmamaya yazgılı, geçici bir anomaliydin...” Intihar Book:Suicide Source: Suicide
“peru'ya gitmedin, siyah potinleri sevmedin, pembe çakıllı bir yolda yalınayak yürümedin. yapmadığın o kadar çok şey var ki insanın başı dönüyor, çünkü bizim de yapamayacağımız ne kadar çok şeyin olacağını gösteriyor. zamanımız yetmeyecek. sen beklememeyi seçtin. sonsuz sanıldığı için yaşama tutunulmasını sağlayan gelecekten vazgeçtin. insan tüm yeryüzünü kucaklamayı, tüm meyvelerin tadına bakmayı, tüm insanları sevmeyi isteyebilir. bizi umutla besleyen bu yanılsamalara sırt çevirdin.” Intihar Book:Suicide Source: Suicide
“If I get up early the day feels longer than if I get up late, even if I spend the same amount of time awake.” MorningPerceptionTime QuotesTime DilationTime Perception Author:Édouard Levé
“Love has given me great pleasure but takes up too much time. I have often been in love. I am surprised when someone loves me. I do not consider myself handsome just because a woman thinks so. I sometimes feel like an imposter without knowing why, as if a shadow falls over me and I can't make it go away. If over time a woman I'm seeing starts to use the expressions I do, I may begin to pity her. I have left a woman because I didn't love her anymore and didn't like the way I was around her. I find something pleasant in the pain of a fading love. I have more good memories than bad ones. I masturbate less to pictures than to memories. I would like to have myself hypnotised by my wife, but I'm not married.” LoveWomenMarriageRelationshipBreakupLove LifeMasturbationRomantic Partner Author:Édouard Levé