40 Quotes by Clarice Lispector
Clarice Lispector was a groundbreaking Brazilian writer and literary innovator whose works explored the depths of human consciousness and identity. Born in 1920 in Ukraine, Lispector's family immigrated to Brazil when she was a child, and she grew up embracing multiple cultural influences. Her writing often delved into existential questions, blending the boundaries between fiction, philosophy, and poetry. Her novel "The Hour of the Star" (1977) is regarded as a masterpiece, showcasing her unique narrative style and introspective prose.
Lispector's works often centered on female characters, offering profound insights into the female psyche and challenging traditional portrayals of women in literature. Her writing was deeply introspective, exploring themes of loneliness, existential anxiety, and the enigmatic nature of human existence. Lispector's literary contributions have left an indelible mark on Brazilian and world literature, inspiring readers and writers to engage with the complexities of human emotions and the search for meaning in life.
Clarice Lispector Quotes
Everything in the world began with a yes. One molecule said yes to another molecule and life was born.
It is because I dove into the abyss that I am beginning to love the abyss I am made of.
The only truth is that I live. Sincerely, I live. Who am I? Well, that's a bit much.
I only achieve simplicity with enormous effort
Do you ever suddenly find it strange to be yourself?
Do you know that hope sometimes consists only of a question without an answer?
I do not know much. But there are certain advantages in not knowing. Like virgin territory, the mind is free of preconceptions. Everything I do not know forms the greater part of me: This is my largesse. And with this I understand everything. The things I do not know constitute my truth.
There it is, the sea, the most incomprehensible of non-human existences.
Her curiosity instructed her more than the answers she was given.
Whether she won or lost, she would continue to wrestle with life. It would not be with her own life alone but with all of life. Something had finally been released within her. And there it was, the sea.
The mystery of human destiny is that we are fated, but that we have the freedom to fulfill or not fulfill our fate: realization of our fated destiny depends on us. While inhuman beings like the cockroach realize the entire cycle without going astray because they make no choices.
Who has not asked himself at some time or other: am I a monster or is this what it means to be a person?
Things were somehow so good that they were in danger of becoming very bad because what is fully mature is very close to rotting
What I want is to live of that initial and primordial something that was what made some things reach the point of aspiring to be human.
No it is not easy to write. It is as hard as breaking rocks. Sparks and splinters fly like shattered steel.
You don't understand music: you hear it. So hear me with your whole body.
My life, the most truthful one, is unrecognizable, extremely interior, and there is no single word that gives it meaning.
How was she to tie herself to a man without permitting him to imprison her? And was there some means of acquiring things without those things possessing her?
A horse is freedom so indominable that it becomes useless to imprison it to serve man: it lets itself be domesticated, but with a simple, rebellious toss of the head-shaking its mane like an abundance of free-flowing hair-it shows that its inner nature is always wild, translucent and free.
Love is so much more deadly than I had thought, love is so much inherent as the very lack, and we are guaranteed by a need to be renewed continuously. Love is now, is forever. There is just the blow of grace - call it passion.
And even sadness was also something for rich people, for people who could afford it, for people who didn't have anything better to do. Sadness was a luxury.
I want the following word: splendor, splendor is fruit in all its succulence, fruit without sadness. I want vast distances. My savage intuition of myself.
To think is an act. To feel is a fact.
I work only with lost and founds.
"All the world began with a yes. One molecule said yes to another molecule and life was born. But before prehistory there was the prehistory of the prehistory and there was the never and there was the yes. It was ever so. I don’t know why, but I do know that the universe never began.
Make no mistake, I only achieve simplicity with enormous effort."
Reality prior to my language exists as an unthinkable thought. . . . life precedes love, bodily matter precedes the body, and one day in its turn language shall have preceded possession of silence.
I' is merely one of the world's instantaneous spasms.
So long as I have questions to which there are no answers, I shall go on writing.
And I want to be held down. I don't know what to do with the horrifying freedom that can destroy me.
The world's continual breathing is what we hear and call silence.
I hear the mad song of a little bird and crush butterflies between my fingers.
Do not mourn the dead. They know what they are doing.
Holding someone's hand was always my idea of joy.
Living isn't courage, knowing that you're living, that's courage
Today at school I wrote an essay about Flag Day which was so beautiful, but ever so beautiful - for I even used words without really knowing what they meant.
At first she dreamed of sheep, of going to school, of cats drinking milk. Little by little she dreamed of blue sheep, of going to school in the middle of the woods, of cats drinking milk from golden saucers. And her dreams became increasingly dense and acquired colours that were difficult to dilute into words.
I write and that way rid myself of me and then at last I can rest.
For one has the right to shout. So, I am shouting.
I write to save someone's life, probably my own
I write as if to save somebody’s life. Probably my own. Life is a kind of madness that death makes. Long live the dead because we live in them.
For at the hour of death you became a celebrated film star, it is a moment of glory for everyone, when the choral music scales the top notes.
I ask myself: is every story that has ever been written in this world, a story of suffering and affliction?
Ignorance of the law of irreducibility was no excuse. I could no longer excuse myself with the claim that I didn't know the law - for knowledge of self and of the world is the law that, even though unattainable, cannot be broken, and no one can excuse himself by saying that he doesn't know it. The renewed originality of the sin is this: I have to carry out my unknowing, I shall be sinning originally against life.
― Clarice Lispector Quotes
Chief Editor
Tal Gur is an author, founder, and impact-driven entrepreneur at heart. After trading his daily grind for a life of his own daring design, he spent a decade pursuing 100 major life goals around the globe. His journey and most recent book, The Art of Fully Living, has led him to found Elevate Society.
