“Then for a brief moment he saw everything completely differently. Open...” — Olga Tokarczuk Quote

“Then for a brief moment he saw everything completely differently. Open space, empty and endless, stretched away in all “directions. Everything within this dead expanse, every living thing was helpless and alone. Things were happening by accident, and when the accident failed, automatic law appeared – the rhythmical machinery of nature, the cogs and pistons of history, conformity with the rules that was rotting from the inside and crumbling to dust. Cold and sorrow reigned everywhere. Every creature was trying to huddle up to something, to cling to something, to things, to each other, but all that resulted was suffering and despair.”

“Sometimes I wonder how my life would have worked out if my books had been translated into English sooner, because English is the language that's spoken worldwide, and when a book appears in English it is made universal, it becomes a global publication.”

“My books are not 'political.' I don't make political demands. They actually describe life. But when we look at human life, politics creeps in everywhere.”

“We invented a history of Poland as a tolerant, open country, a country that has not been tainted by any atrocities committed against its minorities.”

“The English book world is relatively closed to translation, so only a small amount of foreign language work can come in.”

“Where the body began its slow dance with death, one falling leaf at a time, one sunset after the other, the spirit livened with every moment, with every realization that time was a gift far more precious than wealth.”

“Time really is one big continuous cloth, no? We habitually cut out pieces of time to fit us, so we tend to fool ourselves into thinking that time is our size, but it really goes on and on.”

“It's taken me a long time to own the early part of my life.”

“It is requisite for the relaxation of the mind that we make use, from time to time, of playful deeds and jokes.”

“Time travel me back.”

“Time is sacred. Or at least that is what we are led to believe. There isn’t an entity in existence, immortal or otherwise, that isn’t intimidated by its relentless march. Each moment is cruelly hauled into the past without chance of salvage, with us standing by as mere spectators, glimpsing the train as it barrels through, condemned to snippets and never the whole. But perhaps it is this transience that makes a moment so precious, maybe if it were otherwise, we’d exist without meaning. Time is our bittersweet shadow, giving us life as it takes it away.”