The Best Clarice Lispector quotes

Everything in the world began with a yes. One molecule said yes to another molecule and life was born. — Clarice Lispector

My life, the most truthful one, is unrecognizable, extremely interior, and there is no single word that gives it meaning. — Clarice Lispector

Whether she won or lost, she would continue to wrestle with life. It would not be with her own life alone but with all of life. Something had finally been released within her. And there it was, the sea. — Clarice Lispector

I write as if to save somebody’s life. Probably my own. Life is a kind of madness that death makes. Long live the dead because we live in them. — Clarice Lispector

Reality prior to my language exists as an unthinkable thought. . . . life precedes love, bodily matter precedes the body, and one day in its turn language shall have preceded possession of silence. — Clarice Lispector

There it is, the sea, the most incomprehensible of non–human existences. — Clarice Lispector

Who has not asked himself at some time or other: am I a monster or is this what it means to be a person? — Clarice Lispector

Do you ever suddenly find it strange to be yourself? — Clarice Lispector

How does it feel to have a daughter?–At times it’s like holding a warm egg in my hand. — Clarice Lispector

They gave me a name and alienated me from myself. — Clarice Lispector

Brazil is where I have to be, where I have my roots. — Clarice Lispector

Facts and particulars annoy me. — Clarice Lispector

I just know that I don’t want cheating. I refuse. I deepened myself but I don’t believe in myself because my thought is invented. — Clarice Lispector

For one has the right to shout. So, I am shouting. — Clarice Lispector

Today at school I wrote an essay about Flag Day which was so beautiful, but ever so beautiful–for I even used words without really knowing what they meant. — Clarice Lispector

I am only true when I’m alone. — Clarice Lispector

And it’s inside myself that I must create someone who will understand. — Clarice Lispector

I hear the mad song of a little bird and crush butterflies between my fingers. — Clarice Lispector

I cannot stand repetition: routine divides me from potential novelties within my reach. — Clarice Lispector

I write very simple and very naked. That’s why it wounds. I’m a grey and blue landscape. I rise in a dry fountain and in the cold light. — Clarice Lispector

The world’s continual breathing is what we hear and call silence. — Clarice Lispector

How was she to tie herself to a man without permitting him to imprison her? And was there some means of acquiring things without those things possessing her? — Clarice Lispector

Where does music go when it’s not playing?–she asked herself. And disarmed she would answer: May they make a harp out of my nerves when I die. — Clarice Lispector

Holding someone’s hand was always my idea of joy. — Clarice Lispector

I, who called love my hope for love. — Clarice Lispector

What I want is to live of that initial and primordial something that was what made some things reach the point of aspiring to be human. — Clarice Lispector

And I want to be held down. I don’t know what to do with the horrifying freedom that can destroy me. — Clarice Lispector

Her curiosity instructed her more than the answers she was given. — Clarice Lispector

It is because I dove into the abyss that I am beginning to love the abyss I am made of. — Clarice Lispector

Love is now, is always. All that is missing is the coup de grâce–which is called passion. — Clarice Lispector

No it is not easy to write. It is as hard as breaking rocks. Sparks and splinters fly like shattered steel. — Clarice Lispector

And even sadness was also something for rich people, for people who could afford it, for people who didn’t have anything better to do. Sadness was a luxury. — Clarice Lispector