Antonio Tabucchi Quotes

I prefer insomnia to anaesthesia.

I vividly remember the stories my grandfather told me about the carnage of the First World War, which people tend to forget was one of the worst massacres in human history.

It's the job of intellectuals and writers to cast doubt on perfection.

I live quietly at home among my family and friends.

But democracy isn't a state of perfection. It has to be improved, and that means constant vigilance.

People with lots of doubts sometimes find life more oppressive and exhausting than others, but they're more energetic - they aren't robots.

But I don't think I have any particular talent for prediction, because when you have three or four elements in hand, you don't have to be a genius to reach certain conclusions.

There are some fundamental values it's impossible to be wrong about.

Perfection spawns doctrines, dictators and totalitarian ideas.

Eco sees the intellectual as an organizer of culture, someone who can run a magazine or a museum. An administrator, in fact. I think this is a melancholy situation for an intellectual.

I don't want to promote my own image either. I don't like going on television or mixing in literary circles.

Literature for me isn't a workaday job, but something which involves desires, dreams and fantasy.

No, I'm happy to go on living the life I've chosen. I'm a university teacher and I like my job.

Literature is my life of course, but from an ontological point of view. From an existential point of view, I like being a teacher.

It's very useful when politicians have doubts because there are so many choices to be made in the world.

I claim the right to take a stand once in a while.

I don't have any doubts either about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Perhaps some more should be added to the list, but I don't have the slightest doubt about human rights.

The salt of any interesting civilization is mixture.

I've always been drawn to tormented people full of contradictions.

personally I don't trust literature that soothes people's consciences.

Philosophy appears to concern itself only with the truth, but perhaps expresses only fantasies, while literature appears to concern itself only with fantasies, but perhaps it expresses the truth.

Doubts are like stains on a shirt. I like shirts with stains, because when I'm given a shirt that's too clean, one that's completely white, I immediately start having doubts.

In a novel, my feelings and sense of outrage can find a broader means of expression which would be more symbolic and applicable to many European countries.

History is a big word... History is not the sort of animal you can domesticate.

My books are about losers, about people who've lost their way and are engaged in a search.

The most important basis of any novel is wanting to be someone else, and this means creating a character.

My job is to look at what politics is doing, not be a politician myself.

A l'intérieur de ce corps vivait l'âme d'une intellectuelle et poète dont personne n'avait le soupçon. Within this body lived the soul of an intellectual and poet, which nobody had suspected.

Rather than regret for what I have written, I feel regret for what I shall never be able to read.

As a writer, I've always been interested in others.

I don't go for people who lead full and satisfying lives.

Like a blazing comet, I've traversed infinite nights, interstellar spaces of the imagination, voluptuousness and fear.