Mihail Sebastian Quotes

“I've always believed that the only defeats and victories that matter in life are those you lose or win alone, against yourself.”

— Mihail Sebastian

“Doesn't being over-familiar put you at a disadvantage? A more formal way of speaking doesn't just mean you're being polite, it's also a way of protecting yourself.”

— Mihail Sebastian

“I embraced her and she did not object at all. She let herself be kissed and kissed back, but coolly, without conviction, absently, as if she were smoking a cigarette.”

— Mihail Sebastian

“What an odd thing a stranger is. A stranger sleeping next to you. I listen to his breathing as if it were his entire life, with its hidden processes, the pulsing of the blood in the tissues, with thousands of tiny hidden decays and combustions, which together create and maintain him.”

— Mihail Sebastian

The abundance of beards in periods of social unrest, times of revolt or upheaval, should be noted. It's the handiest way people have of making themselves mysterious.

— Mihail Sebastian

“A stranger sleeps next to me, like a stone beside another stone.”

— Mihail Sebastian

“I have always believed it my right to have a locked door between me and the world, and to hold the key myself. Now look at it, kicked open. The doors are off their hinges, the portals unguarded, every cover blown.”

— Mihail Sebastian

“For too long I have played on the stage of lucidity, and I have lost. Now I need to accustom my eyes to the falling darkness. I need to contemplate the natural slumber of all things, which the light calls forth, yet also causes to tire. Life must begin in darkness. Its powers of germination lie hidden. Every day has its night, every light has its shadow.
I cannot be asked to accept these shadows gladly. It is enough that I accept them.”

— Mihail Sebastian

“Sometimes symbolism is too obvious.”

— Mihail Sebastian

“You will face yourself again in a moment of terror and will learn once again that old lesson you keep forgetting: that you can escape from anywhere, but you cannot flee your own self.”

— Mihail Sebastian

“I could reply. I could tell him that a metaphor is inadequate in the face of a bloodbath. That a Platonic inclination for dying doesn't balance out the serious decision to kill. That through the ages there has never been a great historical infamy committed for which there couldn't be found a symbol just as big, to justify it. That, in consequence, we would do well to pay attention to great certainties, to great invocations, to the great 'droughts' and 'rains'. That the temper of our most violent outbursts might benefit from a shade less enthusiasm.
I could reply. But what good would it do? I have a simple, resigned, inexplicable sensation that everything that is happening is in the normal order of things and that I am awaiting a season that will come and pass
because it has come and passed before.”

— Mihail Sebastian