The Door Quotes

“Creativity requires a state of grace. So many things are required for it to succeed.”
― Magda Szabó , The Door

“I know now, what I didn’t then, that affection can’t always be expressed in calm, orderly, articulate ways; and that one cannot prescribe the form it should take for anyone else.”
― Magda Szabó, The Door

“She was lonely. Who isn't lonely, I'd like to know? And that includes people who do have someone but just haven't noticed.”
― Magda Szabó, The Door

“Books formed the basis of my world, my unit of measure was the printed word,”
― Magda Szabó, The Door

“We were both wrong: she who put her faith in me, and I who thought too well of myself.”
― Magda Szabó, The Door

“Creativity requires a state of grace. So many things are required for it to succeed—stimulus and composure, inner peace and a kind of bitter-sweet excitement.”
― Magda Szabó, The Door

“I was still rather young, and I hadn't thought it through, how irrational, how unpredictable is the attraction between people, how fatal its current.”
― Magda Szabó, The Door

“God usually ignored us when asked for something, but he invariably granted what we feared.”
― Magda Szabó, The Door

“If there's no-one to show pleasure when you come home, then it's better not to live.”
― Magda Szabó, The Door

“Once again her face changed. She was like someone standing in strong sunlight on a mountain top, looking back down the valley from which she had emerged and trembling with the memory still in her bones of the length and nature of the road she had travelled, the glaciers and forded rivers, the weariness and danger, and conscious of how far she still had to go.”
― Magda Szabó, The Door

“Пийте си кафето, какво сте зяпнали, не само вие сте била влюбена.”
― Magda Szabó, The Door

“Nem látja, hogy rám hiába villog, nekem senki se kell, aki nem tökéletesen az enyém? Maga mindenkit berakna egy dobozba, aztán mikor ki kell, azt veszi elő, ez itt a barátnőm, ez az unokatestvérem, ez az öreg keresztanyám, ez a szerelmem, ez az orvosom, ez a préselt virág Rhodosz szigetéről, na, hagyjon engem békén. Ha egyszer nem leszek, majd nézzen ki olykor a temetőbe, az elég, ha nem vállaltam azt az embert barátnak, mert férjnek óhajtottam, maga se játssza itt nekem azt, hogy maga az én meg nem született gyermekem.”
― Magda Szabó, The Door

“Нищо не ми идваше наум, аз само върху листа хартия знам какво да правя, в реалния живот трудно намирам правилните думи.”
― Magda Szabó, The Door

“Emerence was spontaneously good, unthinkingly generous, able to reveal her orphaned condition only to another orphan, but never giving voice to her utter loneliness.”
― Magda Szabó, The Door

“In my student days, I detested Schopenhauer. Only later did I come to acknowledge the force of his idea that every relationship involving personal feeling laid one open to attack, and the more people I allowed to become close to me, the greater the number of ways in which I was vulnerable.”
― Magda Szabó, The Door

“Writing isn’t an easy taskmaster. Sentences left unfinished never continue as well as they had begun. New ideas bend the main arch of the text, and it never again sits perfectly true. Anyway,”
― Magda Szabó, The Door

“She also demanded of me that, in my art, it should be real passion and not machinery that moved the branches. That was a major gift, the greatest of her bequests.”
― Magda Szabó, The Door

“Fáradt vagy, mert főzöl, és takarítasz, és vásárolsz, és nem sikerül senkit se találnod, akit elviselsz a közeledben, mert nem valakit keresel te, hanem azt az egyetlent, aki soha többé nem jön el hozzád, Emerencet.”
― Magda Szabó, The Door

“The old woman was interested only in giving, and if anyone tried to surprise her with something, she never smiled, she flew into a rage.”
― Magda Szabó, The Door

“Everything has to be done properly, even death.”
― Magda Szabó, The Door

“When the sands run out for someone, don’t stop them going. You can’t give them anything to replace life. Do you think I didn’t love Polett? That it meant nothing to me when she’d had enough and wanted out? It’s just that, as well as love, you also have to know how to kill. It won’t do you any harm to remember that. Ask your God — since you’re on such good terms with him — what Polett told him when they finally met.”
― Magda Szabó, The Door

“Don’t think that when you come with the injection they won’t already know what’s going to happen. But you needn’t feel sorry for a single one. Being put down is more merciful than being cast out and going stray, with all its perils. Feed them full of meat before you finish them off. None of them are used to meat, and if you add a little sedative, you won’t even have to chase them.”
― Magda Szabó, The Door

“The roast meat the animal had snatched was only a semblance. It was more than food, it was a meal not for human witness, a tangle of viscera, a species of human sacrifice — as if Emerence were feeding the actual person to the dog, along with all her fond memories and feelings.”
― Magda Szabó, The Door

“She told us as much about herself as she saw fit, but generally she said little, like a real mother whose past has become immaterial in her total concern for the future of her children.”
― Magda Szabo , The Door

“We looked after her. But she wanted something else, something more, I don’t know what. She didn’t even want the kitten, although I would have fed it too. That was the limit. Why did she never stop whining? If someone can’t be helped, then they don’t want help.”
― Magda Szabó, The Door

“It was the voice of someone emerging from anesthesia, speaking with the exaggerated precision of a wondering mind striving for clarity.”
― Magda Szabó, The Door

“...mondtam, olyan botrány még nem volt, mint amilyen lesz a Parlamentben, ha én ott megjelenek, mit gondol, érdekel engem, mit tervezett, szőtt ott magában meg a barátaival, miközben én szerettem, ő meg nem szeretett? Szerettem őt. Hallja? Nem a fejit, a tudományát, mert az vitte el tőlem, az a nagyokos feje, tele tannal [...] Olyan bátor volt, életerős, olyan vidám, mint aki nem hal meg soha. És az a rengeteg könyv meg az a végtelen tudomány! Ki akarta azt mind megtanulni, feleljen?”
― Magda Szabó, The Door

“Едното му око беше синьо, другото – зелено, и с всяко от тях така умееше да гледа, че без мяу да каже, човек разбираше какво иска. Но на Полет това не ѝ било достатъчно, не било човек, като че ли не сме животни всичките, просто сме по-несъвършени в сравнение с тях, те не могат ни донесение да направят, нито да наклеветят, и ако откраднат, ще е с причина, защото не могат да отидат до магазина или кръчмата. Как ли не я молих да го приеме, въпреки че не ѝ е подходящ срещу самотата, сираче е, някой проклетник го е изхвърлил, самичко е и без дом ще умре, още е толкова мъничък. Не, не и не, на нея ѝ трябвало човек. Добре, да си го купи на пазара, защото в квартала друго няма, само ние и котката.”
― Magda Szabó, The Door

“Nem hal meg olyan könnyen az ember, ezt tanulja meg, csak majdnem, aztán
később olyan okos lesz attól, amit kiállott, hogy azt kívánja, bár még egyszer buta
lehetne, tökbuta.”
― Magda Szabó, The Door

“When that man left her, and then the barber ran off with all the money and the few valuables she had saved up over the years, she didn’t swallow caustic soda. She shook herself down as if nothing had happened”
― Magda Szabó, The Door