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The secret story is the one we'll never know, although we're living it from day to day, thinking we're alive, thinking we've got it all under control and the stuff we overlook doesn't matter. But every single damn thing matters! Only we don't realize. We just tell ourselves that art runs on one track and life, our lives, on another, and we don't realize that's a lie.

— Roberto Bolaño Last Evenings on Earth (2006)

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More quotes by Roberto Bolaño

If I were to say what I really think I would be arrested or shut away in a lunatic asylum. Come on, I am sure that it would be the same for everyone.

Mining Mirror Vol. 19 (2006)

We never stop reading, although every book comes to an end, just as we never stop living, although death is certain.

Last Evenings on Earth (2006)

One day I heard that The Eye had left Mexico. I wasn't surprised that he hadn't said good-bye. The Eye never said good-bye to anyone. I never said good-bye to anyone either.

Last Evenings on Earth (2006)

Those in power (even if it's only for a little while) known nothing about literature, all they care about is power. And I'll play the fool for my readers, if I feel like it, but never for the powerful.

How do you recognize a work of art? How can it be kept apart, even if only for a moment, from its critics, commentators, its indefatigable plagiarists, its defacers and its final destiny in solitude? Simple — just translate it.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Roberto Bolaño (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.