Isaac Babel famous quotes

07-18-2025

No iron can stab the heart with such force as a period put just at the right place.
-- Isaac Babel

#Life #Heart #Iron
No iron can pierce the human heart as chillingly as a full stop placed at the right time.
-- Isaac Babel

#Heart #Iron #Right Time
A phrase is born into the world both good and bad at the same time. The secret lies in a slight, an almost invisible twist. The lever should rest in your hand, getting warm, and you can only turn it once, not twice.
-- Isaac Babel

#Lying #Hands #Secret
Even at the timeâ€”twenty years oldâ€”I said to myself: better to go hungry, to go to prison, to be a tramp, than to sit at an office desk ten hours a day. There is no particular daring in this vow, but I have not broken it and shall not do so. The wisdom of my grandfathers sat in my head: we are born for the pleasure of work, fighting, love, we are born for that and nothing else. (Guy de Maupassant)
-- Isaac Babel

#Fighting #Years #Broken
She would lift her peignoir above her knees and say to her husband: 'Give baby a kiss...'
-- Isaac Babel

#Baby #Husband #Kissing
For me the whole world is like a gigantic theater in which I am the only spectator without opera glasses. The orchestra plays the prelude to the third act, the stage is far away as in a dream, my heart swells with delightâ€”and you want to blind me with a pair of half-ruble spectacles?
-- Isaac Babel

#Dream #Heart #Play
The orange sky is rolling across the sky like a severed head, gentle light glimmers in the ravines among the clouds, the banners of the sunset are fluttering above our heads. The stench of yesterdayâ€™s blood and slaughtered horses drips into the evening chill.
-- Isaac Babel

#Horse #Sunset #Sky
There is no iron that can enter the human heart with such stupefying effect, as a period placed at just the right moment.
-- Isaac Babel

#Heart #Iron #Crafts
A well-thought-out story doesnâ€™t need to resemble real life. Life itself tries with all its might to resemble a well-crafted story.
-- Isaac Babel

#Real #Trying #Needs
When a phrase is born, it is both good and bad at the same time. The secret of its success rests in a crux that is barely discernible. One's fingertips must grasp the key, gently warming it. And then the key must be turned once, not twice.
-- Isaac Babel

#Keys #Secret #Phrases
If the world could write by itself, it would write like Tolstoy.
-- Isaac Babel

#Writing #World

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