Jerzy Kosiński Quotes

I always have a sense of trembling, but so does a compass, after all.

~ Jerzy Kosiński

There's a place beyond words where experience first occurs to which I always want to return. I suspect that whenever I articulate my thoughts or translate my impulses into words, I am betraying the real thoughts and impulses which remain hidden.

~ Jerzy Kosiński

Chance waited patiently until she stopped.

~ Jerzy Kosiński

The principle of art is to pause, not bypass. The principles of true art is not to portray, but to evoke. This requires a moment of pause--a contract with yourself through the object you look at or the page you read. In that moment of pause, I think life expands. And really the purpose of art--for me, of fiction--is to alert, to indicate to stop, to say: Make certain that when you rush through you will not miss the moment which you might have had, or might still have. That is the moment of finding something which you have not known about yourself, or your environment, about others and about life.

~ Jerzy Kosiński

The recent Dictionary of Occupational Titles lists over twenty thousand specialized professions in America, being a millionaire is not one of them.

~ Jerzy Kosiński

Had it been possible for me to fix the plane permanently in the sky, to defy the winds and clouds and all the forces pushing it upward and pulling it earthward, I would have willingly done so. I would have stayed in my seat with my eyes closed, all strength and passion gone, my mind as quiescent as a coat rack under a forgotten hat, and I would have remained there, timeless, unmeasured, unjudged, bothering no one, suspended forever between my past and my future.

~ Jerzy Kosiński

Lovers are not snails, they don't have to protrude from their shells and meet each other halfway. Meet me within your own self.

~ Jerzy Kosiński

You don't die in the United States you underachieve.

~ Jerzy Kosiński

The principles of true art is not to portray, but to evoke.

~ Jerzy Kosiński

The principle of art is to pause, not bypass.

~ Jerzy Kosiński