The secret story is the one we'll never know, although we're living it from day to day, thinking we're alive, thinking we've got it all under control and the stuff we overlook doesn't matter.
Interpretation
Life often contains unseen complexities and stories that shape our existence beyond our awareness.
This quote by Roberto Bolano suggests that there is an underlying narrative to our lives that we may never fully comprehend. We go through daily routines believing we have everything figured out, but the true essence of our existence—its intricacies and what we often overlook—carries significant weight and influence that goes unseen.
In practice
In a motivational speech about self-awareness, this quote could highlight the importance of recognizing the unseen narratives in our lives.
Coincidence obeys no laws and if it does we don't know what they are. Coincidence, if you'll permit me the simile, is like the manifestation of God at every moment on our planet. A senseless God making senseless gestures at his senseless creatures. In that hurricane, in that osseous implosion, we find communion.
The sky, at sunset, looked like a carnivorous flower.
I'd obviously never heard of the group, but my ignorance in literary matters is to blame for that (every book in the world is out there waiting to be read by me).
Every book in the world is out there waiting to be read by me.
Bright colours in the west, giant butterflies dancing as night crept like a cripple toward the east.
Being alone makes us stronger. That’s the honest truth. But it’s cold comfort, since even if I wanted company no one will come near me anymore.
Longing is a compass that guides us through life. We may never get what we really want, that's true, but every step along the way will be determined by it.
I like to see flowers growing, but when they are gathered, they cease to please. I look on them as things rootless and perishable; their likeness to life makes me sad. I never offer flowers to those I love; I never wish to receive them from hands dear to me.
I have often seen people uncivil by too much civility, and tiresome in their courtesy.
The word 'ivory' rang in the air, was whispered, was sighed. You would think they were praying to it. A taint of imbecile rapacity blew through it all, like a whiff from some corpse. By Jove! I've never seen anything so unreal in my life. And outside, the silent wilderness surrounding this cleared speck on the earth struck me as something great and invincible, like evil or truth, waiting patiently for the passing away of this fantastic invasion.
I am not my childhood,' Snowman says out loud.
The moral truth here is obvious: anyone who feels that the interests of a blastocyst just might supersede the interests of a child with a spinal cord injury has had his moral sense blinded by religious metaphysics.
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