A Hora da Estrela by Clarice Lispector, r. Jun. 2018 and Mar. 2025

p. 27 Essa moça não sabia que ela era o que era, assim como um cachorro não sabe que é cachorro. Daí não se sentir infeliz. A única coisa que queria era viver. Não sabia para quê, não se indagava.

p. 36 Pensando bem: quem não é um acaso na vida? Quanto a mim, só me livro de ser apenas um acaso porque escrevo, o que é um ato que é um fato.

p. 39 Em todo casa o futuro parecia vir a ser muito melhor. Pelo menos o futuro tinha a vantagem de não ser o presente...

p. 39 Será que entrando na semente de sua vida estarei como que violando o segredo dos faraós? Terei castigo de morte por falar de uma vida que contém como todas as nossas vidas um segredo inviolável?

p. 47 Enfim o que fosse acontecer, aconteceria. E por enquanto nada acontecia, os dois não sabiam inventar acontecimentos.

p. 60 É melhor eu não falar em felicidade ou infelicidade - provoca aquela saudade desmaiada e lilás, aquele perfume de violeta, as águas geladas da maré mansa em espumas pela areia. Eu não quero provocar porque dói.

p. 69 - Eu sou sozinha no mundo e não acredito em ninguém, todos mentem, às vezes até na hora do amor, eu não acho que um ser fale com o outro, a verdade só me vem quando estou sozinha.

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p. 6 One way of getting is not looking, one way of having is not asking and only believing that the silence I believe to be inside me is the answer to my – to my mystery.

p. 7 Who hasn't ever wondered: am I a monster or is this what it means to be a person?

p. 10 ...we live exclusively in the present because it is always eternally today and tomorrow will be a today, eternity is the state of things at this very moment.

p. 12 I write because I have nothing else to do in the world: I was left over and there is no place for me in the world of men. I write because I'm desperate and I'm tired, I can no longer bear the routine of being me and if not for the always novelty that is writing, I would die symbolically every day. But I am prepared to slip out discreetly through the back exit. I've experienced almost everything, including passion and its despair. And now I'd only like to have what I would have been and never was.

p. 18 Meanwhile the clouds are white and the sky is all blue. Why so much God. Why not a little for men.

p. 24 So she protected herself from death by living less, consuming so little of her life that she'd never run out. This savings gave her a little security since you can't fall farther than the ground. Did she feel she was living for nothing? I'm not sure, but I don't think so. Only once did she ask a tragic question: who am I? It frightened her so much that she completely stopped thinking.

p. 54 The air? You can't tell everything because the everything is a hollow nothing.

p. 63 She vaguely thought while ringing the doorbell: grass is so easy and simple. She had unprompted and stray thoughts because even though she was at random she possessed much inner freedom.

p. 72 The worst part is that I have to forgive them. We must reach such a nothing that we indifferently love or don't love the criminal who kills us. But I'm not sure of myself: I have to ask, though I don't know who can answer, if I really have to love the one who slays me and ask who amongst you slays me. And my life stronger than myself, replies that it wants revenge at all costs and replies that I must struggle like someone drowning, even if I die in the end. If that's the way it is, so be it.

p. 76 As soon as you discover the truth it's already gone: the moment passed. I ask: what is? Reply: it's not.

p. 77 My God, I just remembered that we die. But – but me too?!