SOME PEOPLE are lawyers, or teachers, or politicians, or bishops, or poets, or farmers. My profession, however, is that of being Joan Fuster. (p. 232)

THAT man has been able over the centuries to invent so many and such a variety of metaphysics is hardly surprising. After all, we are talking about mere excrescences of the imagination. What is most surprising, however, and even alarming, is that man should have needed, or still needs, to invent them.

AH, if sex could think!
(Forgive me, but Pascal gave me the idea: "Let us imagine a body full of thinking members …") (p. 234)

OBEDIENCE is security. (p. 240)

PRECISELY because the world is unjust or imperfect – or whatever you want to call it – man needs hope in order to live. Of course, hope is just one way of deceiving the body, but it can console, or it might lead to revolt – which is another form of consolation. (p. 244)

HAPPINESS! … Happiness, let us be clear about it, consists in any form of abuse. (p. 280)

YOU ACCUSE ME of being sarcastic. And why shouldn't I be? It's hard enough for me to bear myself! (p. 292)

THEY SHOUT OUT LOUD to see if they can shut us up. (p. 310)

WARS should be fought by the old. They would then be biologically less costly. (p. 314)

FREEDOM is a habit and it's not at all easy to acquire.
It only comes with practice! (p. 314)

NO hymns, no flags, no cheering. (p. 315)

“NO INTERVENTION IN THE INTERNAL AFFAIRS OF ANOTHER COUNTRY.” Bofill i Mates (L’altre concòrdia [The Other Concord], p. 50) interpreted it thus: “The reciprocal conferral of carte blanche giving each sovereign free rein to oppress his subjects.” (p.315)

(Indagacions i propostes (Probings and Proposals). Barcelona: Edicions 62, 1981)
 

Translated from the Catalan by Julie Wark ©