Paul Bowles Quotes

There's something repulsive about an American without money in his pocket.

It is a dangerous discovery, because they are going to disregard many vital things in their haste to catch up.

There could be nothing, he reflected, to equal a government which was simply the honest enforcement, by means of the sword, of the laws of Islam.

Writing is harmless, and it keeps me in dinners and out of trouble.

The bar was stuffy and melancholy. It was full of the sadness inherent in all deracinated things.

How fragile we are under the sheltering sky. Behind the sheltering sky is a vast dark universe, and we're just so small.

There is a way to master silence
Control its curves, inhabit its dark corners
And listen to the hiss of time outside

If you could not have freedom you could still have vengeance.

Illness reduces man to his basic state: a cloaca in which the chemical processes continue. The meaningless hegemony of the involuntary.

The odious little dogs that French people seemed to like so much rushed out at him as he rode by, barking furiously.

Life is lived only once. And the less seriously the better.

Fiction should always steer clear of political considerations.

It's a madhouse, of course. A complete, utter madhouse. I only hope to God it remains one.

His behavior there was a perfect balance between gentleness and violence that gave her particular delight.

I have the feeling you are primarily two people,one of which should be killed.

The sky hides the night behind it and shelters the people beneath from the horror that lies above.

If people and their manner of living were alike everywhere, there would not be much point in moving from one place to another.

Tunner's presence created a situation, however slight, which kept him from entering into the reflective state he considered essential.

You know, everyone here's got some little peccadillo he's hoping to hide.

Security is a false God. Begin to make sacrifices to it and you are lost.

The soul is the weariest part of the body.

It is far more sinful to pray irregularly than not to pray at all.

A man could scarcely make his writing a reason for living unless he believed in the validity of that writing.

At least you can say you were in on the last days of Morocco," he told her. "How's your tea? Finished? I think we ought to be going.

Publishers are thieves, they are on the other side of the barricade.

The wind blew the dust along the ground into his mouth as he sang.

Here we say that life is a cliff, and you must never turn around and look back when you're climbing.

Before there can be change there must be discontent.

Tangier is a one-horse town that happens to have its own government.

If she could only give up, relax, and live in the perfect knowledge that there was no hope.

It's unnecessary and destructive to think of oneself at all. People ask me, 'What do you think of yourself as?' My answer is, 'Nothing.

He could not feel at ease with gourmets and hedonists; they were a hostile species.

The rest of the world was there for her to take at any moment she wished it, but she always rejected it in favour of her own familiar little cosmos.

I think that's the point of view of an outsider, a tourist who puts picturesqueness above everything else.

Every second, ten stars set behind the black water in the west.

If you don't know why you like a thing, it is usually worth your while to attempt to find out.

Once you accept the fact that life isn't fun, you'll be much happier, his mother said to him.

She was saved from prettiness by the intensity of her gaze.

The only effort worth making is the one it takes to learn the geography of one's own nature.

May Allah bless you." Or had she said: "May Allah burn you?" He was not sure which: the two Arabic words sounded so much alike.

You can't discipline the whole country."
"Still," Moss said dreamily, "that's what must be done before they can ever accomplish anything.

One of these days the future will be here, and you won't be ready for it.

After all, the English are really too much. One can't live in that constipated fashion forever.

Nothing would have meaning, because the knowing was itself the meaning; beyond that there was nothing to know.

These empty days. How do you spend them?

The key question, it seemed to him, was that of whether man was to obey Nature, or attempt to command her.

How could any young man merely sit back and wait for divine justice to take its course? It was asking the impossible.

But don't we all like to be overpowered, one time or another.