The 70 best sentences of Arturo Pérez-Reverte
Loved and hated in equal parts, Arturo Pérez-Reverte (Cartagena, 1951) is a Spanish writer and journalist who has, among many other distinctions, the honor of representing a letter (or vocal position) in the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language.
He graduated in Journalism at the Complutense University of Madrid. His professional career began as a correspondent for Televisión Española in various war conflicts around the world, back in 2003. He later made his debut as a writer with his saga El Capitán Alatriste, which was an unprecedented success.
Famous quotes and quotes from Arturo Pérez-Reverte
In today's article we will learn more about the figure of this irreverent writer and journalist through the seventy best famous quotes of Arturo Pérez-Reverte .
If we have forgotten some thought or thought of Pérez-Reverte that deserves to appear on this list, please write it down in the comments section.
1. He was not the most honest man nor the most pious, but he was a brave man.
About Captain Alatriste, a character that gives name to what is perhaps his best-selling book.
2. No one should leave without leaving a Troy burning behind them.
In the face of injustice, better to make things clear and leave.
3. Books are doors that take you to the street, Patricia said. With them you learn, you educate yourself, you travel, you dream, you imagine, you live other lives and multiply yours by a thousand.
On the usefulness of reading.
4. It's nice to be happy, he thought. And know it while you are.
Being aware of a pleasant and full life multiplies happiness.
5. Always be suspicious of your favors who are readers of a single book.
A good thinker has many references.
6. The heroism of others always moves a lot.
One of the most remembered phrases of Arturo Pérez-Reverte.
7. The man ... thinks he is a woman's lover, when in reality he is only his witness.
Men, always begging women.
8. The problem with words is that, once cast, they can not go back to their owner alone. So sometimes they turn them to the tip of a steel.
We are owners and slaves of the given word.
9. In a world where horror is sold as art, where art is born with the pretense of being photographed, where living with the images of suffering has no relationship with conscience or compassion, the photos of war are useless nothing.
A great perspective on the information society.
10. Regarding dogs, no one who has not lived with them will never know, in depth, how far the words reach generosity, company and loyalty. No one who has not felt in the arm a wet snout trying to interpose between the book you're reading and you, in demand of a caress, or have contemplated that noble head tilted, those big, dark, faithful eyes, look for a gesture or a simple word, will be able to fully understand what sputtered in my blood when I read those lines; that in dogfighting, the animal, if its master is with it, gives it all.
A praise to the dogs friends.
11. We take photos, not for the purpose of remembering, but to complete them later with the rest of our lives. That's why there are pictures that click and photos that do not. Images that time puts in its place, attributing to some its authentic meaning, and denying others that go out alone, just as if the colors were erased with time.
A great reflection about the authenticity (or not) that the photographs hide.
12. While there is death - he said - there is hope. - Is it another date? - It's a bad joke.
An irony of Reverte's pen.
13. But time passes, and lasts. And there is a time when everything stagnates. The days stop counting, the hope vanishes ... That's when you become a real prisoner. Professional, to put it in some way. A patient prisoner.
When the limits of your day to day constrain you, it is likely that you have become a professional, in the worst sense of the word.
14. I can not tolerate that. -Well, if you are so kind, check your limits of tolerance.
In the age of intolerance, raising your voice is often frowned upon.
15. When I see all those black, brown, red or blue shirts, demanding that you join this or that, I think that before the world was the rich and now it will be resentful.
A society in which everyone seeks revenge.
16. All wars are bad, but civil war is the worst of all, because it confronts the friend with the friend, the neighbor with the neighbor, the brother against the brother. Almost 80 years ago, between 1936 and 1939, in the time of our grandparents and great-grandparents, a terrible civil war took place in Spain. It caused thousands of deaths, destroyed homes, ruined the country and drove many people into exile. To prevent such a devastating tragedy from recurring, it is never convenient to remember how it happened.Thus, from that misfortune can be drawn useful conclusions about peace and coexistence that should never be lost. Terrible lessons that we should never forget.
A reflection by Pérez-Reverte on the Spanish civil war.
17. For better or for worse, in spite of the Turkish, French, Dutch, English and whore who gave birth, Spain had, for a century and a half, well caught up in Europe and the world by the balls.
About the country that was once great.
18. It is doubt that keeps people young. Certainty is like an evil virus. You get old age
Only when we feel uncertainty do we become passionate about things.
19. The bad thing about these things is that, until the tail does not pass, everything is bull.
Ironic reflection of the great Arturo.
20. Well looked at, the world has stopped thinking about death. Believing that we are not going to die makes us weak, and worse.
We try to move death away from our thinking and that only accomplishes the opposite effect.
21. I had learned that the bad thing was not waiting, but the things you imagine while you wait.
Patience always has a prize, if you know how to manage the wait.
22. The world never knew as much about itself and its nature as it does now, but it does not help at all. There were always tidal waves, look. What happens is that before we did not pretend to have luxury hotels on the beach ... The man creates euphemisms and smoke screens to deny the laws of nature. Also to deny the infamous condition that is his own. And each awakening costs the two hundred deaths of a plane that falls, the two hundred thousand of a tsunami or the million of a civil war.
On the ignorance of our time, despite having all the means to drive it away.
23. Can anyone tell me what the hell is that? And he pointed to the valley with an imperious and imperial finger, which he had used to mark the Pyramids when that of the forty centuries or - in another order of things - the bed of Maria Valewska.
A fragment of The shadow of the eagle.
24. I believe that in today's world the only possible freedom is indifference. That's why I'll continue living with my saber and my horse.
A fashionable trend.
25. Thanks to you, I can no longer believe in the certainties of those who have a house, a family, some friends.
To reflect.
26. And is it true that they say? That the character of a woman shows more sincerity when she dances? -Sometimes. But no more than a man's.
Interesting reflection on how dance shows us the true essence of each person.
27. A perceptive woman - she continues - guesses the pedant in the third sentence, and is able to see the talent of the one who keeps silent.
On the sixth feminine sense.
28. Nothing is more despicable, or dangerous, than an evil man who goes to sleep every night with a clear conscience.
On the cynics and their modus operandi.
29. The Greek philosophers were right in saying that war was the mother of all things.
Peace is born peace, unfortunately.
30. A woman is never just a woman, dear Max. It is also, and above all, the men you had, what you have and what you could have. None is explained without them.
Influences that come and go.
31. Embrutecidos in their small miseries, without seeing beyond. Without wishing the dawn of the ideas that liberate them ... Oblivious to anything other than eating, drinking, scolding, sleeping and procreating.
About the men of few lights.
32. This is also the story of my life, he thought, or part of it: looking for a taxi at dawn, smelling of a woman or a lost night, without one thing contradicting the other.
Diary of a womanizer.
33. ... For nothing defines better the Spain of my century, and that of all, than the image of the poor and miserable hidalgo, dead of hunger, that does not work because it is lowering of its condition; and although he fasts daily, he goes out with a sword, giving himself airs, and throws bread crumbs in his beard so that his neighbors think he has eaten.
A crude portrait about the average Spanish man.
34. Thus, after having a good number of lovers, a woman must consider herself lucky if she knows how to convert any of them, the most intelligent, into a faithful and loyal friend.
A reflection on love from the perspective of women.
35. With Russians and with women you never know.
Unpredictable.
36. You were a good photographer because photographing is framing, and framing is choosing and excluding. Save some things and condemn others. Not everyone can do that: stand up judge of everything that happens around. Nobody who really loves can dictate that kind of sentence.
On the job of a photographer: deciding what to teach and what not.
37. And it is true that any detail can change the life: a path that is taken, for example, or that takes to take because of a conversation, a cigarette, a memory.
The importance of small details and coincidences.
38. Those motherfuckers are already difficult as allies, so when they know we're shooting the countrymen to paint them in oil that guy, Goya, imagine what they can organize us.
Ironic historical reference.
39. Let us go back to Spain and let each pooch lick its own organ, mesié, said in fine, that is.
Directed to the French.
40. From time to time the human race needs to go to hell for a while.Going well gone, and have someone give a little push to facilitate the trip.
Humanity usually gives a lot of embarrassment to others.
41. Who only cares about books does not need anyone, and that scares me.
It is not to be trusted who has such one-dimensional interests.
42. ... He knew very well ... the simple reasons why a man with the right doses of fanaticism, rancor or mercenary profit motive could kill indiscriminately.
His stories since the war.
43. The man tortures and kills because it is his. Likes.
Of course, centuries and centuries bear witness to this fact.
44. I'm fed up with this mess of living room, with its red cord and its shameless camouflage after a dry courtesy that nobody cheats. If you're looking for me, it's time for me to find you.
Brave before the onslaughts.
45. Only an organized and strong State, protector of its artists, thinkers and scientists, is capable of providing the material and moral progress of a nation ... And that is not our case.
It is not the case of Spain, precisely.
46. Do not tell me that it is not shameful for the human species to have measured the distance from Earth to the Sun, to have weighed all the planets nearby, and not to have discovered the fertile laws that make the happiness of the peoples.
Sometimes, science is eaten.
47. Today I say Bringas something in which I agree: it is not the tyrants that do the slaves, but they who do the tyrants. - With an aggravating circumstance, dear friend ... In times of darkness, the ignorance of man was excusable. In an enlightened century like this, it is unforgivable.
There is no forgiveness for a person to be ignorant when access to information is practically free.
48. It would be fair to remember that, in times of darkness, there were always good men who fought to bring their compatriots the lights and progress ... And there were those who tried to prevent it.
Good and bad citizens, in all times.
49. Twelve hours in bed, four in the dressing table, five in visits and three in a walk, or in the theater.
About the middle bourgeois.
50. In the war you survive thanks to the accidents of the terrain. That leaves a special sense of the landscape. Do not you think?
The shots do not come if you cover yourself well.
51. We came to the coast with the rest of the regiment and the Danes and the mondieus stuck on their heels, bang-bang and everyone running, fagot the last.
A brief and direct story about a war context.
52. That a skinny dog is all fleas, and Spaniards do not need anyone to ruin us, because we always dominate the finibusterre well enough to do it alone.
Experts in digging our own grave.
53. Since always, being lucid and Spanish has brought great bitterness and little hope.
Smart people born in Spain tend to have a bad destiny.
54. My name is Boris Balkan and I once translated La Cartuja de Parma. For the rest, the critiques and recensiones that I write come out in supplements and magazines of half Europe, I organize courses on contemporary writers in the summer universities, and I have some books published on popular novel of the XIX. Nothing spectacular, I'm afraid; especially in these times where suicides are disguised as homicides, novels are written by Rogelio Ackroyd's doctor, and too many people insist on publishing two hundred pages about the exciting experiences they experience while looking at themselves in the mirror.
Fragment of The Dumas Club.
55. As for me, I only know that I know nothing. And when I want to know I look for books, to which memory never fails.
About his constant learning process.
56. It changes things a lot, in this sense, to go through La Mancha with Don Quixote in your hands, visit Palermo having read El Gatopardo, walk through Buenos Aires with Borges or Bioy Casares in memory, or walk through Hisarlik knowing that there was a city called Troy, and the shoes of the traveler carry the same dust for which Achilles dragged the corpse of Hector tied to his car.
Another fragment of one of his works.
57. A library is not something to read, but a company, "he said, after taking a few more steps. A remedy and a comfort.
Ode to libraries.
58. I am convinced that every building, every painting, every old book that is destroyed or lost, makes us a little more orphaned. It impoverishes us.
On the destruction of culture.
59. As you know, I like to remember old episodes of our history. Especially if they cause respect for what some of our countrymen were able to do. Or try. Situations with possible parallel reading, of application to the time in which we live. I assure you that it is an almost analgesic exercise; Especially during those disastrous days, when I think the only solution would be tons of napalm followed by a repopulation of mixed couples, for example, of Swedes and Africans. However, when one of those old stories comes to mind, I conclude that napalm may not be essential. There were always here compatriots capable of doing things that are worth it, I tell myself. And somewhere they will be still.
Arturo Pérez-Reverte and his interest in historical events.
60In a venal world, made of hypocrisy and false ways, the powerful, the scavenging vultures, the envious, the cowards and the scoundrels often hide one another.
Likewise.
61. To insist, at this point, that I generally appreciate dogs more than men is a truism that I will not rivet too much. I have once said that if the human race were to disappear from the face of the earth, it would gain a lot in the change; while without dogs it would be a darker and more unbearable place. A matter of loyalty, I suppose. Some people value some things and who values others. For my part, I believe that unconditional loyalty, proof of everything, is one of the few things that can not be bought with rhetoric or money. Maybe that's why loyalty, in men or in animals, always moistens my sunglasses a little bit.
His love for dogs is greater than he professes towards humanity.
62. Thus, laws may be taught and studied to bleed the plaintiffs from their last maravedi; How do your lawyers, lawyers and other people of bad living make your favors.
The misuse of laws in the hands of the powerful.
63. After all, what would become of us without ourselves, I thought. Life is a shipwreck, and everyone goes for a swim as best they can.
Great metaphor about existence.
64. Imagine the painting: it would be your kind grace to come to light and unravel yourself, gentleman, thank you, I see that you are the most blond, allow me to introduce a fourth of Toledo steel in the livers.
Sentence loaded with sarcasm.
65. The principle is true: weakness makes a woman feel good, and we know it. We are interested in looking delicate and in need of man.
They take advantage of that helpless image, according to Pérez-Reverte.
66. In life, the bad thing is not knowing, but showing that you know yourself.
Pedantry subtracts many points.
67. Body to body I have to kill where Sevilla sees it, in the square or in the street; that anyone who kills and does not fight can be excused; and the one who dies of treason wins more than the one who kills him.
A fragment of one of his works.
68. Ah, well said, sir. A libertine occupies the social place that many other men do not dare or can not occupy ... They lack, or lack, what we have to have.
His healthy envy to men of happy life.
69. If I am not afraid of losing what I have, nor do I want to have what I do not enjoy, little of the fortune in me, the destruction will be worth, when I choose actor or criminal.
Arturo Pérez-Reverte's great phrase to reflect.
70. As the secretary has just read, it is a question of choosing two good men among our comrades.
Another fragment of good men.
