The Zahir Quotes- 2
P 43
People do their best not to remember and not to accept the immense magic potential they possess because taht would upset their neat little universes.
P 44
I think in the time of war, men live life at the limit. After all, they could die the next day. Anyone living like that must act differently.
P 46
Someone who saw the world as it really was and not as we had been told it should be.
My head was full of thoughts about ... and stragies for how to seduce a woman who appeared to be interested in me.
P 47
What the eye doesnt see, the heart doesnt grieve over.
Are you interested in my work?
Yes I am interested, but I dont want to interfere, I want you to be free to follow your dream in your chosen way, just as you helped me to do the same.
But what is freedom?
Is it seeing that your husband isnt interested in what you are doing? Is it feeling alone and having noone with whom to share your innermost feelings, because the person you married is entirely focused on his own work, on his important, magnificent, difficult career.
P 52
In France, infidelity is not only accepted, it is even secretly admired.
P 53
My main concern was quite different. To reorganize my life, to find a new love, to go back to writing books, and to put away any memories of my wife in the little drawer that exists on the frontier between love and hate. OR should I say memories of my ex-wife. (I needed to get used to the term)
My wife left me for a younger man. When I did go out, no one asked me anything but after a few glasses of wine I felt obliged to bring the subject up, as if I could read everyone's mind, as if I really believed that they had nothing more to occupy them than what was happening in my life, but they were too polite or smug to say anything. Depending on my mood, Esther was either a saint who deserved better, or a treacherous, perfidious woman who had embroiled me in such a complicated situation that I had even thought a criminal.
P 54
But it was no longer part of their current curiosities.
Although it may have been good for my soul to unburden myself of my feelings, to blame or to bless Esther, I began to realise that I was becoming something even worse than betrayed husband. I was becoming the kind of boring person noone wants to be around.
With the Zahir beginning to occupy my every thought, I needed an antidote, something that would not take me to the brink of despair.
There was only one possible solution: a girlfriend.
P 55
Celebrity is an aphrodisiac. It was good for a woman's ego to be with a man and know that he had chosen her even though he had the pick of many others.
We were close but not dependent on each other.
I would even go so far as to say that there was between us a kind of love, but different from the love I felt for Esther or that Marie felt for her neighbour.
P 58
Its not life that matters, but the journey.
P 60
For the first time in my life I felt that "I love another human being more than I love myself".
P 61
On the contrary I am pleased that she exists. She has shown me that I am capable of love of which I myself knew nothing, and this leaves me in a state of grace. I accept the Zahir, and will it lead me into a state of either holiness or madness.
P 65
Absurd though it may seem, I discovered love.
I dont believe in the curative powers of suffering and tragedy. They happen because they are part of life and shouldnt be seen as a punishment. Generally speaking the universe tells us when we are wrong by taking away waht is most important to us, our friends.
Our true friends are those who are with us when the good things happen. They cheer us on and are pleased by our truimphs. False friends appear at difficult times, with their sad, supportive faces, when in fact our suffering is serving to console them for their miserable lives.
P 67
The energy of hatred wont get you anywhere. But the energy of forgiveness, which reveals itself through love, will transform your life in a positive way.
All it (bitterness with the world caused by scars left by some of the injustices committed against you in your life) does is feed a constant desire to feel sorry for yourself. Because you were the victim of people stronger than you. Or else it makes you go to the other extreme and disguise yourself as an avenger ready to hit out the people who hurt you. Isnt that a waste of time?
--Its just human.
But its not intelligent or reasonable. Show some respect for your time on this earth.
