One more year the anniversary of the birth of Camilo José Cela. Prolific author - and also controversial - where they exist (as novelist, journalist, essayist, editor of literary magazines, lecturer, etc.), he was academic of the Royal Spanish Academy for 45 years.
He also won, among others, the Prince of Asturias Award for Literature in 1987, the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1989 and the Cervantes Prize in 1995. I select some of his most memorable snippets and phrases both his own and his novels, of which I keep two: The Hive y Pascual Duarte's family.
Phrases
- "It is not the same to be asleep than to be sleeping, as it is not the same to be fucked than to be fucking."
- “Women are to be liked. Later, some are left, others are not ... That already goes through the provinces. "
- "The bad thing about those who believe they are in possession of the truth is that when they have to prove it, they don't get one right."
- "The noblest function of a writer is to give testimony, as a notarial act and as a faithful chronicler, of the time that he has had to live."
- “If the writer does not feel capable of starving himself, he must change his profession. The truth of the writer does not coincide with the truth of those who distribute the gold. "
- "A carallo in time is a dialectical victory"
- “The nationalist believes that the place where he was born is the best place in the world; and that is not true. The patriot believes that the place where he was born deserves all the love in the world; and that is true. "
The Hive
- Those who want to disguise life with the crazy mask of literature lie.
- Luck is like women, who gives herself to those who persecute her and not to those who see them pass by on the street without saying a word to them.
- The human head is a less than perfect apparatus. If only what goes on inside heads could be read like in a book!
- Miss Elvira's bedroom smells of used clothes and women: women do not smell of perfume, they smell of stale fish.
- Compassion is the antidote to suicide, as it is a feeling that provides pleasure and that gives us, in small doses, the enjoyment of superiority.
Pascual Duarte's family
The birth of poor Mario -which is what we had to call the new brother- had more of an accident and annoyance than anything else, because, to top it all off, my mother's scandal when giving birth, was all to coincide with the death of my father ... If Mario had made sense when he left this valley of tears, surely he would not have left very satisfied with him. Little lived among us; it seemed that he had smelled the kinship that awaited him and would have preferred to sacrifice him to the company of the innocents in limbo. God knows well that he hit the road, and how much suffering was saved by saving years! When he left us he was not yet ten years old, and if few were for how much he had to suffer, enough must have been to get to talk and walk, both things that he did not get to know; The poor man did not go beyond crawling on the ground as if it were a snake and making little noises with his throat and his nose as if he were a rat: it was the only thing he learned ... One day - when the creature was four years old - luck fell He turned so against him that, without having sought or desired him, without having bothered anyone and without having tempted God, a pig (with forgiveness) ate both of his ears. Don Raimundo, the apothecary, put some yellow powder, seroform, and it was so painful to see him yellow and without ears that all the neighbors, to bring him comfort, most of them brought him a knitting on Sundays; others, some almonds; others, some olives in oil or a little chorizo ... Poor Mario, and how grateful he was, with his black eyes; consolations!