Best 18 quotes of Trevanian on MyQuotes

As you know, shibumi has to do with great refinement underlying commonplace appearances. It is a statement so correct that it does not have to be bold, so poignant it does not have to be pretty, so true it does not have to be real. Shibumi is understanding, rather than knowledge. Eloquent silence. In demeanor, it is modesty without pudency. In art, where the spirit of shibumi takes the form of sabi, it is elegant simplicity, articulate brevity. In philosophy, where shibumi emerges as wabi, it is spiritual tranquility that is not passive; it is being without the angst of becoming.

Do not fall into the error of the artist who boasts of twenty years experience in his craft while in fact he has had only one year of experience - twenty times.

Generalization is flawed thinking only when applied to individuals. It is the most accurate way to describe the mass, the Wad. And yours is a democracy, a dictatorship of the Wad.

Go is to Western chess what philosophy is to double-entry accounting.

Irony is Fate's most common figure of speech.

It was not their irritating assumption of equality that annoyed Nicholai so much as their cultural confusions. The Americans seemed to confuse standard of living with quality of life, equal opportunity with institutionalized mediocrity, bravery with courage, machismo with manhood, liberty with freedom, wordiness with articulation, fun with pleasure - in short, all of the misconceptions common to those who assume that justice implies equality for all, rather than equality for equals.

No one really likes Switzerland, except those who prefer cleanliness to life.

The rope connecting two men on a mountain is more than nylon protection; it is an organic thing that transmits subtle messages of intent and disposition from man to man; it is an extension of the tactile senses, a psychological bond, a wire along which currents of communication flow.

We all desire to be understood, but no one enjoys being obvious.

You can gain experience, if you are careful to avoid empty redundancy. Do not fall into the error of the artisan who boasts of twenty years experience in craft while in fact he has had only one year of experience–twenty times. And never resent the advantage of experience your elders have. Recall that they have paid for this experience in the coin of life, and have emptied a purse that cannot be refilled.

And he recalled the ancient adage: Who must do the harsh things? He who can.

Başyardımcı içine dolgun bir soluk çekerken gözleri parıldıyordu. Parmak uçlarını birbirine sürttü. İşte bu seferki, sanat gerektiren bir görevdi. Aşk, sevgi, dostluk, güven... böyle kaypak kavramlar kazık gibi metodlarla öğrenilecek şeyler değildi. Hiçbir bilgisayar, hatta Şişko bile böyle konularda direkt cevap veremezdi. Sorular non-frekans sayılarıyla, non-sekitör ilişkileriyle sorulmak zorundaydı. Yani en basit anlamıyla, ölçülebilir bir neden olmaksızın yapılmış hareketler, belirli bir mantık olmadan girişilmiş eylemler, belki sevgi, dostluk, güven gibi nedenlere dayanan şeyler olabilirdi. Ama bunların listesini çıkarırken de çok dikkatli davranmak şarttı. Çünkü aynı hareket ve eylemlerin nedeni nefret, delilik veya şantaj da olabilirdi pekâlâ. Zaten sevgi için motivasyon içgüdüsünü saptamak hiçbir zaman kolay değildi. Hele sevgiyi şantajdan ayırmak hemen hemen olanaksızdı.

Confession is good for the soul, it empties the spirit making more room for sin.

Gardiyan elindeki tepside ağır bir çaydanlık ve iki kulpsuz Japon fincanıyla girdi. Çayı bardaklara sarsak hareketlerle, evcil bir ayıymış gibi boşalttı. Sanki zarafetten nasibi olmamak erkekliğin kanıtıymış gibi.

I am struck by what a tawdry magician’s trick Time is after all. I am sixty-six years old. Viewed from your coign of vantage—facing toward the future—sixty-six years is a great deal of time. It is all of the experience of your life more than three times over. But, viewed from my coign of vantage—facing toward the past—this sixty-six years was the fluttering down of a cherry petal. I feel that my life was a picture hastily sketched but never filled in . . . for lack of time. Only yesterday—but more than fifty years ago—I walked along this river with my father. I can remember how big and strong his hand felt to my small fingers. Fifty years. But all the insignificant, busy things—the terribly important, now forgotten things that cluttered the intervening time collapse and fall away from my memory. And I remember another yesterday when my daughter was a little girl. We walked along here. At this very moment, the nerves in my hand remember the feeling of her chubby fingers clinging to one of mine.

It's not Americans I find annoying; it's Americanism: a social disease of the postindustrial world that must inevitably infect each of the mercantile nations in turn, and is called 'American' only because your nation is the most advanced case of the malady, much as one speaks of Spanish flu, or Japanese Type-B encephalitis. It's symptoms are a loss of work ethic, a shrinking of inner resources, and a constant need for external stimulation, followed by spiritual decay and moral narcosis. You can recognize the victim by his constant efforts to get in touch with himself, to believe his spiritual feebleness is an interesting psychological warp, to construe his fleeing from responsibility as evidence that he and his life are uniquely open to new experiences. In the later stages, the sufferer is reduced to seeking that most trivial of human activities: fun.

Niko? I have decided to christen this little pool Le Cagot's Soul." "Oh?" "Yes. Because it is clear and pure and lucid." "And treacherous and dangerous?" "You know, Niko, I begin to suspect that you are a man of prose. It is a blemish on you." "No one's perfect." "Speak for yourself.

Your scorn for mediocrity blinds you to its vast primitive power. You stand in the glare of your own brilliance, unable to see into the dim corners of the room, to dilate your eyes and see the potential dangers of the mass, the wad of humanity. Even as I tell you this, dear student, you cannot quite believe that lesser men, in whatever numbers, can really defeat you. But we are in the age of the mediocre man. He is dull, colorless, boring — but inevitably victorious. The amoeba outlives the tiger because it divides and continues in its immortal monotony. The masses are the final tyrants. See how, in the arts, Kabuki wanes and withers while popular novels of violence and mindless action swamp the mind of the mass reader. And even in that timid genre, no author dares to produce a genuinely superior man as his hero, for in his rage of shame the mass man will send his yojimbo, the critic, to defend him. The roar of the plodders is inarticulate, but deafening. They have no brain, but they have a thousand arms to grasp and clutch at you, drag you down.