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Quote by María Gainza

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Optic Nerve

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María Gainza

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“We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Good writing starts strong. Not with a cliché (“Since the dawn of time”), not with a banality (“Recently, scholars have been increasingly concerned with the question of…”), but with a contenful observation that provokes curiosity”

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Book:The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century
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“(…) o tempo ensinou-lhe algumas astúcias: "Evitar os sinônimos, que têm a desvantagem de sugerir diferenças imaginárias; evitar hispanismos, argentinismos, arcaísmos e neologismos; preferir as palavras habituais às palavras assombrosas; intercalar em um relato traços circunstanciais, exigidos agora pelo leitor; simular pequenas incertezas, já que, se a realidade é precisa, a memória não o é; narrar os fatos (isto aprendi em Kipling e nas sagas da Islândia) como se não os entendesse totalmente; lembrar que as normas anteriores não são obrigações e que o tempo se encarregará de abolilas".”

BorgesLiteratura ArgentinaEstiloBorginiano
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“A música afeta as nossas emoções e pode levantar-nos ou baixar-nos o moral. Um bom exemplo disto é a forma como as bandas sonoras dos filmes nos dão pistas sobre como reagirmos à cena que estamos a ver – romance, humor e tensão são ampliados pela música que os acompanha.”

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Book:How Music Works: The Science and Psychology of Beautiful Sounds, from Beethoven to the Beatles and Beyond
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“I love London. I love everything about it. I love its palaces and its museums and its galleries, sure. But also, I love its filth, and damp, and stink. Okay, well, I don’t mean love, exactly. But I don’t mind it. Not any more. Not now I’m used to it. You don’t mind anything once you’re used to it. Not the graffiti you find on your door the week after you painted over it, or the chicken bones and cider cans you have to move before you can sit down for your damp and muddy picnic. Not the everchanging fast food joints – AbraKebabra to Pizza the Action to Really Fried Chicken – and all on a high street that despite its three new names a week never seems to look any different. Its tawdriness can be comforting, its wilfulness inspiring. It’s the London I see every day. I mean, tourists: they see the Dorchester. They see Harrods, and they see men in bearskins and Carnaby Street. They very rarely see the Happy Shopper on the Mile End Road, or a drab Peckham disco. They head for Buckingham Palace, and see waving above it the red, white and blue, while the rest of us order dansak from the Tandoori Palace, and see Simply Red, White Lightning, and Duncan from Blue. But we should be proud of that, too. Or, at least, get used to it.”

LondonDanny WallaceCharlotte Street
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“"I saw you and I see you every day. I greet you every day. Can you read my eyes? I miss you every day. I love you every day. What was this guy’s story? Doorman? Bus driver? Receptionist? Who’s the girl? Has she noticed him? Is he anyone to her, or just the fella behind the counter at Benji’s? Why doesn’t he say something to her? But I knew why. Because there’s the creeping fear that these moments don’t actually exist outside your own head. No eyes meet across a crowded room, no two people think precisely the same thing, and if only one person actually has that moment, is it even really a moment at all? We know this, so we say nothing. We avert our eyes, or pretend to be looking for change, we hope the other person will take the initiative, because we don’t want to risk losing this feeling of excitement and possibilities and lust. It’s too perfect. That little second of hope is worth something, possibly for ever, as we lie on our deathbeds, surrounded by our children, and our grandchildren, and our great-grandchildren, and we can’t help but quickly give one last selfish, dying thought to what could have happened if we’d actually said hello to that girl in the Uggs selling CDs outside Nando’s seventy-four years earlier. It’s the what if? The what then? And we know that if we go for it, if we risk it, we immediately stand to lose it. But weirdly, some part of us believes the feeling is two-way, because it must be; it’s too special not to be. We believe that something’s been shared, even if the evidence we have is … what? A look that lasted a breath longer than we’re used to? A second glance, when the glance could easily have been to check whether there are any cabs coming, or whether the jacket we’re wearing that’s caught their eye would look good on their boyfriend, or why it is we seem to be staring at them."”

Danny WallaceCharlotte Street
Book:Charlotte Street
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“Vedete, una storia che finisce puoi affrontarla. Fa male, e per un po' è un dolore così lacerante che è come se i polmoni collassassero e il cuore implodesse ogni volta che ti rendi conto che se n'è andato. Ma man mano che passa il tempo, almeno per me, è quello che è rimasto, quelle briciole sul pavimento, che ti aiutano a continuare. Quelle modeste prove che ti aiutano a guarire, questa è l'idea che mi sono fatta.”

Danny WallaceCharlotte StreetLa Ragazza Di Charlotte Street
Book:Charlotte Street
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