Born this week:
Alexander Pushkin, Russia
"Ecstasy is a glassful of tea and a piece of sugar in the mouth"
Thomas Mann, Germany
"We are most likely to get angry and excited in our opposition to some idea when we ourselves are not quite certain of our own position, and are inwardly tempted to take the other side."
Vladimir Zazubrin, Russia
"Public executions enshroud even the most dangerous criminal in a halo of heroism."
Saeed Nafisi, Iran
Margarite Yourcenar, France
"The unfortunate thing is that, because wishes sometimes come true, the agony of hoping is perpetuated."
Maria Luisa Bombal, Chile
"It may be that true happiness lies in the conviction that one has irremediably lost happiness. Then we can begin to move through life without hope or fear, capable of finally enjoying all the small pleasures, which are the most lasting."
Saul Bellow, USA
"There is only one way to defeat the enemy, and that is to write as well as one can. The best argument is an undeniably good book."
Yasunari Kawabata, Japan
"There can be no world of the Buddha without the world of the devil. And the world of the devil is the world difficult of entry. It is not for the weak of heart."
Leopoldo Marechal, Argentina
William Styron, USA
"A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading it."
Died this week:
Gerhart Hauptmann, Germany
Julien Benda, France
"And History will smile to think that this is the species for which Socrates and Jesus Christ died."
Henry Miller, USA
"The history of the world is the history of a privileged few."
George Sand, France
"I have an object, a task, let me say the word, a passion. The profession of writing is a violent and almost indestructible one."
Severo Sarduy, Cuba
Takeo Arishima, Japan
Ugo Betti, Italy
"Memories are like stones, time and distance erode them like acid."
Miguel Angel Asturias, Guatemala
Sigrid Undset, Sweden
"I hated school so intensely. It interfered with my freedom. I avoided the discipline by an elaborate technique of being absent-minded during classes."
Erasmus
"I consider as lovers of books not those who keep their books hidden in their store-chests and never handle them, but those who, by nightly as well as daily use thumb them, batter them, wear them out, who fill out all the margins with annotations of many kinds, and who prefer the marks of a fault they have erased to a neat copy full of faults."
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