I found Leonora Carrington's 'The Hearing Trumpet' really funny. — Olga Tokarczuk Comedy Copy Share Image
We can feel in Poland a kind of phantom pain for lost multi-ethnic territories. — Olga Tokarczuk Copy Share Image
Polish literature can be interesting to the world. I'm happy to be the trailblazer. — Olga Tokarczuk Books Copy Share Image
Reality is like a doughnut: Everything that is good and funny and juicy is outside the center, which is just emptiness. — Olga Tokarczuk Emptiness Copy Share Image
“S gledišta prirode nema korisnih i nekorisnih bića. To je samo glupavo razlikovanje koje primjenjuju ljudi." str. 156.” — Olga Tokarczuk Copy Share Image
I don't have a clear biography of my own that I could recount in an interesting way. I'm made up of the… — Olga Tokarczuk Characters Copy Share Image
Seeing everything means recognizing the ultimate fact that all things that exist are mutually connected into a single whole, even if the… — Olga Tokarczuk Connections Copy Share Image
I've never been a great fan of crime fiction. I read Agatha Christie in my youth, but that's all. — Olga Tokarczuk Crime Copy Share Image
In today's world everything is political. We are a statement - our clothes, haircut, the way we act. — Olga Tokarczuk Clothes Copy Share Image
I believe absolutely that words must be treated as material weapons, every invective or threat as violence and aggression. — Olga Tokarczuk Aggression Copy Share Image
If your country is wiped off the map and your language is banned, if your literature has to serve a cause, it… — Olga Tokarczuk Books Copy Share Image
Well-written novels make you more empathetic towards other people. You can identify with someone who isn't you. You can change your identity.… — Olga Tokarczuk Books Copy Share Image
Everything that was interesting was outside of Poland. Great music, art, film, hippies, Mick Jagger. It was impossible even to dream of… — Olga Tokarczuk Art Copy Share Image
We know so much about planets and the universe and small particles and we do not know anything about the inner state… — Olga Tokarczuk Copy Share Image
“Speaking does harm, sows confusion and weakens things that are obvious. Speaking makes me tremble inside. I don't think I have ever… — Olga Tokarczuk Entire life Copy Share Image
I write books to open people's minds, to present new perspectives, to make people realize that what they think is obvious is… — Olga Tokarczuk Books Copy Share Image
“Uvečer promatram Veneru, podrobno pratim promjene te lijepe Gospođice. Više je volim kao večernju zvijezdu, kada se pojavljuje niotkud, kao začarana, i… — Olga Tokarczuk Copy Share Image
In a healthy, normal society, people can disagree with one another, even have diametrically opposing views, and this does not at all… — Olga Tokarczuk Hate Copy Share Image
I realized that we don't travel in such a linear way anymore but rather jump from one point to another and back… — Olga Tokarczuk Copy Share Image
“The human psyche evolved in order to defend itself against seeing the truth. To prevent us from catching sight of the mechanism.… — Olga Tokarczuk Existential Copy Share Image
“Below the mill the rivers merge. First they flow close beside each other, undecided, overawed by their longed-for intimacy, and then they… — Olga Tokarczuk Melting pot Copy Share Image
“There were corporeal, psychic, and spiritual people. Somatics, psychics, and pneumatics, they called them, from the Greek. Equality goes against nature, however… — Olga Tokarczuk Corporeal Copy Share Image
When we talk about books, we rarely talk about the economic side of writing, especially of writing literary works, and that, at… — Olga Tokarczuk Books Copy Share Image
I create doubt in the reader's mind. That is what literature is for: to provoke, to raise doubts, to talk about things… — Olga Tokarczuk Books Copy Share Image
Novels can change attitudes. Maybe we should speak quietly otherwise politicians will use novels as propaganda. — Olga Tokarczuk Books Copy Share Image
My books are not 'political.' I don't make political demands. They actually describe life. But when we look at human life, politics… — Olga Tokarczuk Books Copy Share Image
Reading English novels I always adore the ability to write without fear about inner psychological things that are so delicate. — Olga Tokarczuk Ability Copy Share Image
I think that first-person narration is very characteristic of contemporary optics, in which the individual performs the role of subjective center of… — Olga Tokarczuk Copy Share Image
From death's perspective, there are no differences between people; there are no presidents or flight attendants, no faiths or nations. There is… — Olga Tokarczuk Death Copy Share Image
The world is a fabric we weave daily on the great looms of information, discussions, films, books, gossip, little anecdotes. — Olga Tokarczuk Books Copy Share Image
We invented a history of Poland as a tolerant, open country, a country that has not been tainted by any atrocities committed… — Olga Tokarczuk Atrocities Copy Share Image
The English book world is relatively closed to translation, so only a small amount of foreign language work can come in. — Olga Tokarczuk Books Copy Share Image
“Historie życia nie są tematem do dyskusji. Powinno się ich wysłuchać i zrewanżować się tym samym.” — Olga Tokarczuk Life Copy Share Image
In a certain sense we can be proud to have introduced this hairstyle to Europe. 'Plica polonica' should be added to the… — Olga Tokarczuk Crude oil Copy Share Image
I decided to write a crime novel. That genre was at the height of its popularity in Poland, so I thought it… — Olga Tokarczuk Books Copy Share Image
Poland was once a powerful imperial country that disappeared from maps of Europe for more than 100 years. It was partitioned and… — Olga Tokarczuk Copy Share Image
But sometimes I fear that the people of my country can unite only beside victims' bodies, over coffins and in cemeteries. Like… — Olga Tokarczuk Coffins Copy Share Image
But the fact is we did have colonies in the east of Poland, we did have a slave economy there. But this… — Olga Tokarczuk Country Copy Share Image
“Te osobe stvaraju dojam kao da je u njima sačuvano više sjećanja na našu nevinost, kao da su čudo prirode i da… — Olga Tokarczuk Copy Share Image
I believe in a kind of literature which makes clear that, at a deeper level, below the surface, we are tied together… — Olga Tokarczuk Copy Share Image
