Some quotes of Ivo Andric

(careful: it's just my translation!)



"Posrnucete, ali necete pasti; a ako se i desi - izuzetan slucaj! - bas i da padnete, necete se povrediti nego cete, cim se pridignete, produziti mirno i bodro svoj put. Razliciti ste od svega oko sebe, sve vam preti i sve vas ugrozava, ali vam se ne moze nista zlo i nepopravljivo desiti, jer u vama od zacetka vaseg zivi skrivena i neunistiva iskra zivotne radosti koja je mocnija od svega sto vas okruzuje. Samo cete celog veka, sve do poslednjeg daha, patiti zbog svog neprirodnog polozaja u svetu u koji ste baceni. Tako se moze reci da vam je, kroz sve mene i obrte dugog zivota, dvoje zajemceno i osigurano: duga patnja i sigurna pobeda."

"You will stumble, but you won't fall; and even if that happens - exceptional case! - that you fall, you won't get hurt but you will, as soon as you get up, continue your way peacefully and cheery. You are different from anything around you, everything threatens you and everything attacks you, but nothing evil and irrecoverable can happen to you, since from the moment you were created there is a hidden and indestructible sparkle of life joy in you, that is stronger than anything that surrounds you. Just, all your life, until your last breath, you will suffer because of your unnatural position in the world you're thrown into. Therefore, it can be said that, through all phases and changes of a long life, two things are guaranteed and sure for you: long suffering and certain victory."



"Kad nisam ocajan, ja ne valjam nista."

"When I am not desperate, I am worthless."



"- Sta radi tvoja zalost dok ti spavas?

- Bdi i ceka. A kad izgubi strpljenje, budi me."

"- What does your sorrow do while you're sleeping?

- It is awaken and waiting. And, when it loses patience, it wakes me up."



"I tuga je jedna vrsta odbrane."

"Sadness is also a kind of defence."



"Ono sto moze i biti i ne biti uvek se, na kraju krajeva, pokori onome sto mora biti."

"What can and doesn't have to be always, at the end, surrenders to something that has to be."



"Zemlje velikih ostvarenja su i zemlje velikih nepravdi."

"Lands of great discoveries are also lands of great injustices."



"- Ne treba se bojati ljudi.

- Pa ja se i ne bojim ljudi, nego onoga sto je neljudsko u njima."

"- You shouldn't be afraid of the humans.

- Well, I am not afraid of the humans, but of what is inhuman in them."



"Trazeci ono sto mi treba, a ono sto ni sam ne znam tacno sta je, isao sam od coveka do coveka, i video da svi zajedno imaju manje nego sto imam ja koji nista nemam, i da sam kod svakoga ostavio ponesto od onoga sto nemam i sto trazim."

"Searching for what I need, and I don't even know precisely what that is, I was going from a man to a man, and I saw that all of them together have less than me who has nothing, and that I left to each of them a bit of that what I don't have and I've been searching for."



"Izmedju bojazni da ce se nesto desiti i nade da mozda ipak nece, ima vise prostora nego sto se misli. Na tom uskom, tvrdom, golom i mracnom prostoru provode mnogi od nas svoj vek."

"Between the fear that something would happen and the hope that still it wouldn't, there is much more space than one thinks. On that narrow, hard, bare and dark space a lot of us spend their lives."



"Kad ne mogu da vidim, necu ni da gledam."

"When I can't see, I don't even want to watch."



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