Jews From Ukraine

"It was one of those mornings that seem to hang in the air. And that are most akin to the idea we have of time. (beginining of "Começos de uma Fortuna")"

"Early in the morning it was always the same thing renewed: waking up. Which was languorous, unfurling vast. Vastly she'd open her eyes. (beginining of "Preciosidade")"

"He walked looking at the buildings in the rain, impersonal and omniscient again, blind in the blind city; but an animal knows its forest; and even if it gets lost - getting lost is a path too. (11: The First Deserters)"

"There wasn't so much as a gesture that could express the new reality. (9: The Exposed Treasure)"

"Even error was a discovery. Erring would make her find the other face of objects and touch their dusty sides. (6: Sketch of the City)"

"Courage however was deciding to start. As long as she didn't begin, the city was intact. And it would be enough to start looking to smash it into a thousand pieces that she could never put back together afterward. It was a patience of constructing and demolishing and constructing again and knowing she might die one day right when she'd demolished in the process of building."

"Yet around her things were living so violently sometimes. The sun was fire, the earth solid and possible, plants were sprouting alive, trembling, whimsical, houses were made so that in them bodies could be sheltered, arms would wrap around waists, for every being and for every thing there was another being and another thing in a union that was a burning end with nothing beyond."

"She'd be flowing all her life. But what had dominated her edges and attracted them toward a center, what had illuminated her against the world and given her intimate power was the secret. She'd never know how to think of it in clear terms afraid to invade and dissolve its image. Yet it had formed in her interior a far-off and living nucleus and had never lost the magic-it sustained her in her unsolvable vagueness like the single reality that for her should always be the lost one. The two of them were leaning over the fragile bridge and Virgínia was feeling her bare feet falter insecurely as if they were dangling atop the calm whirl of the waters. It was a violent and dry day, in broad fixed colors; the trees were creaking beneath the warm wind wrinkled by swift cool drafts. The thin and torn girlish dress was pierced by shivers of coolness. With her serious mouth pressed against the dead branch of the bridge, Virginia was plunging her distracted eyes into the waters. Suddenly she'd frozen tense and light: "Look!""

"The words are pebbles rolling in the river. (p179)"

"נהוג לחשוב שהשכחה הינה חסרון. אני סבור שהיא יתרון. לדעת לשכוח, פירושו להשתחרר מכל תלאות העבר"

"היום אתה חש מרומם. אל תתן לימות האתמול והמחר להשפיל את רוחך"

"זכור תמיד: השמחה איננה עניין שולי במסעך הרוחני – היא חיונית"

"כל העולם כולו גשר צר מאוד, והעיקר - לא לפחד כלל."

"אם אתה מאמין שיכולים לקלקל, תאמין שיכולים לתקן"

"'אין יאוש בעולם כלל"

"לעולם אל יהא אדם זקן. לא צדיק זקן ולא חסיד זקן. הזקנה מידה מגונה היא, חייב אדם להתחדש תמיד, מתחיל וחוזר ומתחיל"

"הִנֵּה הַכּל אוֹמְרִים, שֶׁיֵּשׁ עוֹלָם הַזֶּה וְעוֹלָם הַבָּא"

"יש מפורסמים שעיקר הפרסום שלהם נעשה על ידי מחלוקת"

"And know that a person needs to traverse a very, very narrow bridge, but the fundamental and most important principle is to have no hesitation or fear at all."

"If you believe that it is possible to break, believe it is also possible to fix."

"It is a great mitzvah to be happy always."

"“All my teachings are only introductions, [the main part is up to you to discover]” (SH 200)"

"“You should constantly review my teachings until you know them by heart” (CM)"

"Disparage no book, for it is also a part of the world."

"אמר שלעתיד יהיו כל העולם אנשי ברסלב. ובל"א [ובלשון אשכנז] אמר בזה״ל לעתיד לבא וועט דיא גאנצע וועלט זיין ברסלביר חסידים. - חיי מוהר"ן שלט"

"אני יכול עכשיו לומר כל חכמי ישראל דומין עלי כקליפת השום. - חיי מוהר"ן רצ"

"לבקר אחרים ולתת להם הרגשה שאינם רצויים – זאת יכול כל אחד לעשות. אך לרומם את רוחם ולהעניק להם הרגשה טובה – לכך דרושים כשרון מיוחד והשקעת מאמץ"

"Nearly five years have passed since I had the opportunity to admire this magician of the keyboard. My impatience to hear him again was shared by the public, who actually assaulted the doors of the great Salle Pleyel in order to attend the Horowitz recital. I expected to hear the 'demonic' virtuoso who amazed the world at his debut. Instead I found him transformed-but not for the better. He still remains the same extraordinary pianist, but I had the impression-and I hope I am not the only one-that Horowitz is trying a tout prix to 'purify' his interpretations, to strip them of anything approaching artificiality. Yet, he accomplished this in such a way as to produce the contrary effect: his playing becomes mechanical and deadly artificial!"

"I don’t believe that about his Chopin, actually. I think his Chopin was extraordinarily perceptive and terribly personal. ... On the criticism of Horowitz’ Chopin, I haven’t heard that myself, but I think that comes down to taste."

"No pianist, it is unnecessary to say, has an all-embracing culture. Like any other, Horowitz has had his specialties. Most professionals would agree that Horowitz played Rachmaninoff, Liszt, Scriabin and Prokofieff with more flair than any pianist of his time. And one of the curious things about this extraordinary technician was that he had a surprising affinity for the miniatures of the repertoire. Scarlatti; Chopin mazurkas and waltzes; isolated pieces by Schumann; salon music by Moszkowski — these he played with grace, charm and unaffected simplicity. In the larger Beethoven, Schumann and Chopin works, he sometimes would become too engrossed in detail, and at those moments his playing could sound disconnected. At times, too, the nervous intensity with which he approached music could be unsettling. Inner repose was lacking. Yet he could turn around and play Schumann's Arabesque in a calm, rippling, spacious manner, or sing out the last movement of the C major Fantasy with with wide-arched lines and a luminous quality of tone. A paradoxical and fearsome pianist."

"there are three kinds of pianists: Jewish pianists, homosexual pianists, and bad pianists."

"I liked him [Arthur Rubinstein] as a pianist. He was a good musician and had a fantastic repertoire. He never had a great technique, but certain things he played well. I heard him play some of the Chopin etudes, the easier ones with great panache and I told him I had never heard them played better. He said, "Do you mean it?" and I said, "Yes, I do mean it.""

"I heard Edwin Fischer, who did not mean much to me. I heard another pianist in Berlin who had a big success and I thought he was awful — Mischa Levitzki. Just fingers, and you cannot listen only to fingers. There is a difference between artist and artisan. Levitzki was an artisan. But Ignaz Friedman, who I admired, was a great artist. He had wonderful fingers and a very personal, individual way of playing, even if some of his ideas were very strange to me. He had no hesitation touching up the music. I got annoyed with him at one concert when he changed the basses in Chopin's F minor Ballade. I didn't like that. For some reason he was happier making records than he was on the stage."

"I was impressed mostly by Gieseking [Horowitz said in 1987]. He had a finished style, played with elegance, and had a fine musical mind."

"Of the Russian pianists I like only one, Richter. Gilels did some things well, but I did not like his mannerisms, the way he moved around while he was playing."

"Perfection itself is imperfection."

"Interesting pianist, but I think he is just a little bit meshuga."

"The free world should not wait for dictatorial regimes to consent to reform."

"Freedom's skeptics must understand that the democracy that hates you is less dangerous than the dictator who loves you. Indeed, it is the absence of democracy that represents the real threat to peace."

"Now we can see why nondemocratic regimes imperil the security of the world. They stay in power by controlling their populations. This control invariably requires an increasing amount of repression. To justify this repression and maintain internal stability, external enemies must be manufactured."

"A simple way to determine whether the right to dissent in a particular society is being upheld is to apply the town square test: Can a person walk into the middle of the town square and express his or her views without fear of arrest, imprisonment, or physical harm? If he can, then that person is living in a free society. If not, it's a fear society."

"The conviction that freedom is a universal desire is not the property of any political camp. ... Yet those who hold it remain a precious few, outnumbered many times over by the skeptics who don't."

"A lack of moral clarity is also the tragedy that has befallen efforts to advance peace and security in the world. Promoting peace and security is fundamentally connected to promoting freedom and democracy."

"The State of Israel is a national home for the entire Jewish people and it is clear to me that there is no dispute between any party or Zionist movement, while the nation-state law was originally intended to reinforce this principle, the most recent amendments to it are of great concern because they drive a wedge between Jews in Israel and in the Diaspora."

"Irving Berlin has no place in American music. He is American music."

"It's February the 22nd And I can't tell a lie."

"I'm dreaming of a white Christmas, Just like the ones I used to know."