Quotes from Olga Tokarczuk

Some people have a sense of unearthly things, just as others have an excellent sense of smell or hearing or taste. They can feel the subtle shifts in the great and complicated body of the world. And some of these have so honed that inner sight that they can even tell where a holy spark has fallen, notice its glow in the very place you would least expect it. The worse the place, the more fervently the spark gleams, flickers— and the warmer and purer is its light.

What makes us most human is the possession of a unique and irreproducible story, that we take place over time and leave behind our traces.

People are always far away.

Desire in itself is empty, in other words it merely indicates direction, but never destination; destinations, in any case, always remain phantasmagoric and unclear; the closer we get to them, the more enigmatic they become. By no means is it possible to ever actually attain a given destination, nor, in so doing, appease desire.

There must be some sort of drugs. I'd like that. To stop me from feeling anything, or worrying, to let me sleep. Is that possible

When we were young we thought of old age as an ailment that affected only other people.

It is widely known, after all, that real life takes place in movement.

They weren't real travelers: they left in order to return.

On a Wednesday in January, at seven in the morning, it's plain to see that the world was not made for Man, and definitely not for his comfort or pleasure.

Everything is hypothetical in hell.

There are some things we may not understand, but we can sense them perfectly well.

Reality has grown old and gone senile; after all, it is definitely subject to the same laws as every living organism—it ages.