novelists-from-belgium

"Tu es le pain et le couteau. Le cristal et le vin."

"I have two small altars where I burn incense when I have time and I'm in the mood, but I'm not really a pious practitioner. Modern living being what it is, I am not much into practice, but my thought, on the other hand, goes on uninterrupted."

"This current of thought, which has developed mainly in the United States in the Protestant context, claims witchcraft as its own, which makes me boil. They start off with the principle that in the European countryside a tradition of black magic has survived as an aspect of Paganism. They claim to be bringing forth an organized, conscious religion which has survived through the centuries as an underground movement. This is a historical hallucination and, alas, they are founding a Pagan renaissance upon this decadence."

"I was motivated not so much by belief, as by loyalty to my Pagan ancestors, who were loyal to their Gods, worshiping underground, always resisting, and who punctuate our history."

"I am taking the high road, an ascetic path, but one which to my way of thinking is the only valid path which in the long run has got what it takes. It's a slow and sometimes discouraging undertaking. At times it can seem a little bewildering. Europe is yet far from being re-Paganized, but little by little, thinkers catch the idea and feel reconquered. Generally, it doesn't take much: an image, an attitude, an experience, rather than a speech, and everything that has been repressed has come back ever so strongly. Our role is that of waker-uppers."

"I have no idea what forms this Paganism will have in another 30 years, I think we will be surprised. The Gods will manifest more and more--it's a matter of survival for the Earth, our Mother. That we Pagans are ever more numerous to worry over Her future is surely a sign of the Gods who act through us."

"When I dug into this temple, which had been destroyed by the Christians, I was shocked... I was barely 15, yet I understood in a powerful hands-on, nonintellectual way, how harsh had been Europe's conversion to Christianity. They burned temples, smashed statues, massacred the priests and established extremely harsh laws. By 392 ce, Paganism died."

"Yes, India is the land of the Gods par excellence... The experience of the divine presence in India is within the reach of anyone who searches even a little bit. The temples are full of flowers and offerings, and you only have to flow along with the crowd, melt into it and place yourself in the hands of the Gods. I do not advocate conversion to Hinduism, but I do recommend its inspiration. I told this to the brahmins that took me into their homes. One said, 'Establish your reawakened Paganism on a valid foundation and there'll come a day when it will catch on. It won't be long.' As true Pagans, they feel no need to convert anyone."

"One can convert to the major, organized religions or to a school of ethics, but one cannot convert to Paganism. One simply belongs to it."

"A hundred years ago, the idea was rampant in public opinion that Pagans were barbarians, grown-up children who worshiped pieces of wood. Today one tends to describe them as villains, as Nazis. In a very subtle way, Paganism is disenfranchised as a faith and presented as a highly dangerous and regressive movement."

"The Book of Boz is neither a novel nor a poem nor a tale. Even less is it a drama or an essay. It is nothing except the style that inspires it and haunts it, to excess. No points of reference here. No beacon. You sail wherever the wind blows. Stories are woven, end, are reborn, with the flow, before a storm comes up to carry us further away, to the threshold of a new vision. For, that is The Book of Boz : a work outside of norms, indefinable, created by a wanderer for other wanderers."

"Fellini, je crois que, dans ma vie, j'ai été plus Casanova que vous! J'ai fait le calcul, il ya un an ou deux. J’ai eu dix mille femmes depuis l’âge de treize ans et demi. Ce n’ést pas du tout un vice. Je n’ai aucun vice sexuel, mais j’avais besoin de communiquer."

"I never read contemporary fiction – with one exception: the works of Simenon concerned with Inspector Maigret."

"Writing is not a profession but a vocation of unhappiness. I don't think an artist can ever be happy."

"The fact that we are I don't know how many millions of people, yet communication, complete communication, is completely impossible between two of those people, is to me one of the biggest tragic themes in the world."

"Toute loi trop souvent transgressée est mauvaise: c'est au législateur à l'abroger ou à la changer."

"Overhead shone the great star of the constellation of Lyra, destined to be the polar star for men who will live tens of thousands of years after we have ceased to be."

"La passion comblée a son innocence, presque aussi fragile que toute autre."

"Tout bonheur est un chef-d'oeuvre: la moindre erreur le fausse, la moindre hésitation l'altère, la moindre lourdeur le dépare, la moindre sottise l'abêtit."

"La mémoire de la plupart des hommes est un cimetière abandonné, où gisent sans honneurs des morts qu'ils ont cessé de chérir."

"Rien n'est plus lent que la véritable naissance d'un homme."

"Il y a plus d'une sagesse, et toutes sont nécessaires au monde; il n'est pas mauvais qu'elles alternent."

"Par-delà ce village, d'autres villages, par-delà cette abbaye, d'autres abbayes, par-delà cette forteresse, d'autres forteresses. Et dans chacun de ces châteaux d'idées, de ces masures d'opinions superposés aux masures de bois et aux châteaux de pierre, la vie emmure les fous et ouvre un pertuis aux sages."

"Qui serait assez insensé pour mourir sans avoir fait au moins le tour de sa prison?"

"The world is big … May it please the One who perchance is to expand the human heart to life’s full measure."

"Peu de bipèdes depuis Adam ont mérité le nom d'homme."

"At this period of his existence, meat and blood, entrails, and all that had ever lived and breathed disgusted him as food, for an animal dies in pain just as man does, and it repelled him to be digesting death's agony."

"Le malheur est que, parfois, des souhaits s'accomplissent, afin que se perpétue le supplice de l'espérance."

"In alchemical treatises, the formula L'Oeuvre au Noir … designates what is said to be the most difficult phase of the alchemist's process, the separation and dissolution of substance. It is still not clear whether the term applied to daring experiments on matter itself, or whether it was understood to symbolize trials of the mind in discarding all forms of routine and prejudice. Doubtless it signified one or the other meaning alternately, or perhaps both at the same time."

"(how do you know when you reach your goal?) It is a clear intuition, but it is at the same time mysterious. It is as though the finished work had existed previously but had somehow disappeared from the earth, and all I did was rediscover it. Marguerite Yourcenar compared that flash of discovery to the mysterious moment when the baker knows it is time to stop kneading the dough."

"il [Zénon] savait fort bien qu'il n'existe aucun accommodement durable entre ceux qui cherchent, pèsent, dissèquent, et s'honorent d'être capables de penser demain autrement qu'aujourd'hui, et ceux qui croient ou affirment croire, et obligent sous peine de mort leurs semblables à en faire autant."

"Je crois qu'il faut presque toujours un coup de folie pour bâtir un destin."

"Tout silence n'est fait que de paroles qu'on n'a pas dites. C'est pour cela peut-être que je devins un musicien. Il fallait quelqu'un pour exprimer ce silence, lui faire rendre tout ce qu'il contenait de tristesse, pour ainsi dire le faire chanter. Il fallait qu'il ne se servît pas des mots, toujours trop précis pour n'être pas cruels, mais simplement de la musique."

"Avoir du mérite à s'abstenir d'une faute, c'est une façon d'être coupable."

"Il n'est pas difficile de nourrir des pensées admirables lorsque les étoiles sont présentes."

"Nos défauts sont parfois les meilleurs adversaires que nous opposions à nos vices."

"Nous nous croyons purs tant que nous méprisons ce que nous ne désirons pas."

"On ne doit plus craindre les mots lorsqu'on a consenti aux choses."

"Tous nous serions transformés si nous avions le courage d'être ce que nous sommes."

"La lettre écrite m'a enseigné à écouter la voix humaine, tout comme les grandes attitudes immobiles des statues m'ont appris à apprécier les gestes."

"Le véritable lieu de naissance est celui où l'on a porté pour la première fois un coup d'oeil intelligent sur soi-même: mes premières patries ont été des livres."

"Des moments libres. Toute vie bien réglée a les siens, et qui ne sait pas les provoquer ne sait pas vivre."

"Je savais que le bien comme le mal est affaire de routine, que le temporaire se prolonge, que l'extérieur s'infiltre au dedans, et que le masque, à la longue, devient visage."

"Les êtres humains avouent leurs pires faiblesses quand ils s'étonnent qu'un maître du monde ne soit pas sottement indolent, présomptueux, ou cruel."

"Nos lois civiles ne seront jamais assez souples pour s'adapter à l'immense et fluide variété des faits. Elles changent moins vite que les moeurs; dangereuses quand elles retardent sur celles-ci, elles le sont davantage quand elles se mêlent de les précéder."